A   STUDENT'S   HISTORY 
OF   PHILOSOPHY 


_ 


A    STUDENT'S    HISTORY 
OF    PHILOSOPHY 


BY 
ARTHUR    KENYON    ROGERS,   PH.D. 

PROFESSOR    OF    PHILOSOPHY    IN    BUTLER    COLLEGE 
AUTHOR    OF    "A    BRIEF    INTRODUCTION    TO    MODERN     PHILOSOPHY1 


NEW  EDITION,  REVISED 


gorfe 
THE    MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

LONDON  :   MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LTD. 
1912 

jfll  rights  reserved 


COPYRIGHT,  1901,  1907, 
BY  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.  Published  September,  1901.  Reprinted  October, 
1902;  July,  1904;  July,  1905;  January,  October,  1906. 

New  edition  June,  1907  ;  May,  1908 ;  July,  1909  ;  January,  1910  ;  January, 
19"  ;  February,  igia. 


Nortoootf 

J.  8.  Gushing  <fc  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith  Co. 
Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


Annex 


PREFACE 

I  HAVE  tried  in  the  present  volume  to  give  an  account 
of  philosophical  development,  which  shall  contain  the  most 
of  what  a  student  can  fairly  be  expected  to  get  from  a 
college  course,  and  which  shall  be  adapted  to  class-room 
work.  What  I  have  attempted  to  accomplish  will  be 
sufficiently  covered  in  the  following  statements  :  — 

i.  The  chief  aim  has  been  simplicity,  in  so  far  as  this 
is  possible  without  losing  sight  of  the  real  meaning  of 
philosophical  problems.  In  summing  up  the  thought  of 
any  single  man,  I  have  left  out  reference  to  the  minor 
points  of  his  teaching,  and  have  endeavored  to  emphasize 
the  spirit  in  which  he  philosophized,  and  the  main  prob- 
lems in  connection  with  which  he  has  made  an  impression. 
Similarly,  I  have  passed  over  many  minor  names  without 
mention,  unless  some  literary  or  historical  interest  creates 
the  presumption  that  the  student  is  already  acquainted 
with  them  in  a  general  way.  Of  course,  the  relative  space 
that  can  most  profitably  be  given  to  different  topics  is  a 
matter  of  judgment,  and  I  cannot  hope  that  my  choice  will 
always  be  approved.  But  it  is  clear,  I  think,  that  the  same 
principle  can  hardly  be  used  in  an  introductory  work  that 
would  suit  more  advanced  students.  I  have  tried  con- 
tinually to  keep  in  mind  the  results  that  can  reasonably 
be  hoped  for  from  a  college  class.  So,  for  example,  the 
mediaeval  period  is  intrinsically  of  great  importance.  But, 
from  the  standpoint  of  an  introductory  course,  it  has  also 
marked  disadvantages,  and  I  have,  accordingly,  only  given 
it  a  brief  space.  Similarly,  I  have  not  attempted  to  trace 


vi  Preface 

the  more  technical  lines  of  influence  from  one  philosopher 
to  another,  as  they  are  almost  impossible  for  the  student 
to  grasp. 

Whatever  the  success  of  the  present  attempt,  I  think 
there  is  a  place  for  a  book  with  this  selective  purpose, 
alongside  such  a  volume  as,  e.g.,  Weber's.  The  attempt 
to  give  a  summary  of  all  the  important  facts  which  a  stu- 
dent with  a  more  technical  interest  in  philosophy  would 
find  useful,  serves  a  valuable  end,  and  an  end  with  which 
the  present  volume  does  not  pretend  to  compete ;  but  it 
seems  to  me  that  the  two  aims  are  not  altogether  com- 
patible in  the  same  book.  The  wealth  of  material  is 
bound  to  confuse  the  beginner,  no  matter  how  clearly  it 
is  put.  I  have  attempted  rather  to  create  certain  broad, 
general  impressions,  leaving  further  details  to  come  from 
other  sources. 

2.  Whenever  I  could,  I  have  given  the  thought  of  the 
writers  in  their  own  words,  particularly  where  the  literary 
interest  can  be  made  to  supplement  the  philosophical.     In 
this  way  it  is  possible  to  give  the  exposition  an  attractive- 
ness which  no  mere  summing  up  could  have,  and  it  will 
often  supply,  I  think,  by  its  suggestion  of  the  personality 
back  of  the  thought,  a  needed  clew  for  the  understanding 
of  the  thought  itself.     I  hope  also  it  may  be  the  means 

.of  arousing  an  interest  in  the  masterpieces  of  philosophy 
at  first  hand,  and  may  suggest  that  they  have  a  really 
human  and  vital  side.  The  desirability  of  a  considerable 
amount  of  such  reading  at  first  hand  it  is  hardly  necessary 
to  insist  upon.  The  literary  interest  is  also  responsible 
for  my  giving  one  or  two  things  an  amount  of  space  which 
is  perhaps  not  entirely  proportionate  to  their  philosophical 
importance. 

3.  I  have  assumed  that  the  study  of  the  history  of  phi- 
losophy will  centre  about  the  systems  of  individual  men ; 


Preface  vii 

but  I  have  tried  also  to  bear  in  mind  the  need  of  relating 
these  to  the  more  general  history  of  civilization.  This 
I  have  attempted  through  the  medium  of  a  somewhat 
mild  reproduction  of  the  Hegelian  philosophy  of  history. 
Doubtless  this  might  have  been  made  much  more  attrac- 
tive and  illuminating;  but  I  do  not  think  that,  given  the 
concrete  knowledge  that  can  be  presupposed  in  the  aver- 
age student,  it  would  be  wise  to  attempt  to  make  this 
aspect  of  the  study  otherwise  than  subordinate  in  a  text- 
book. 

In  the  lists  of  references  which  are  added  to  nearly 
every  section,  the  aim  has  been  to  give  such  as  the  stu- 
dent is  likely  to  find  helpful.  The  list  might  have  been 
enlarged  indefinitely,  especially  by  the  addition  of  French 
and  German  books ;  but  these  can  so  seldom  be  made  use 
of  by  the  college  student  to  advantage  that  a  reference  to 
them  did  not  seem  necessary.  I  have  to  acknowledge  my 
own  obligation  to  very  many  of  these  volumes,  perhaps  to 
Windelband  most  of  all. 

Acknowledgments  are  due  to  the  following  publishers 
for  their  permission  to  utilize  various  translations  of  philo- 
sophical works :  Macmillan  &  Co. ;  Geo.  Bell  &  Sons ; 
A.  &  C.  Black ;  Paul,  Trench,  Triibner  &  Co. ;  Cambridge 
University  Press;  Henry  Holt  &  Co.;  Chas.  Scribner's 
Sons  ;  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons  ;  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.  In 
several  cases  acknowledgments  are  due  also  to  the  authors 
for  a  personal  permission. 


PREFACE   TO   REVISED   EDITION 

IN  the  present  revision  I  have  corrected  some  errors  of 
fact,  and  a  large  number  of  mistakes  of  judgment  and 
infelicities  of  expression.  In  several  cases  the  exposition 
has  been  in  greater  or  less  part  rewritten.  I  have  also 
added  references  in  connection  with  passages  quoted,  and 
have  brought  the  bibliographies  down  to  date.  I  have  in 
the  revision  tried  to  profit  by  the  criticisms  that  have  come 
to  my  notice.  I  have  not  considered  it  advisable,  however, 
to  add  essentially  to  the  fulness  of  the  treatment,  even  in 
the  case  of  matters  which  in  themselves  are  well  worthy 
of  greater  emphasis.  Any  number  of  things  of  interest 
could  have  been  brought  in,  but  it  seemed  unwise  to 
increase  the  bulk  of  the  volume.  Of  course  the  teacher 
who  uses  it  as  a  text  will  naturally  in  any  case  supplement 
it  to  a  greater  or  less  extent.  In  the  concluding  sections 
only  has  there  been  a  slight  expansion. 

Most  of  my  critics  have  recognized  what  were  intended 
to  be  the  limitations  of  the  book,  and  have  not  blamed  me 
too  severely  for  failing  to  do  what  I  have  made  no  pre- 
tence of  attempting.  That  there  was  a  legitimate  field  for 
a  work  of  the  sort  would  appear  to  be  indicated  by  the 
kindly  reception  which  has  been  given  to  it;  and  I  trust 
that  it  is  now  a  little  more  adequate  to  its  purpose. 


CONTENTS 


FAGB 

INTRODUCTION i 

§  i.    The  Nature  of  the  History  of  Philosophy.    Primitive  Con- 
ceptions of  the  World I 

I.     GREEK   PHILOSOPHY 
THE  SCIENTIFIC  PERIOD 

§  2.    The  Origin  of  Greek  Philosophy 8 

§  3.    The  Milesian  Scftool.     Thales 12 

§  4.   Heracleitus 14 

§  5.    The  Eleatic  School.    Xenophanes,  Parmenides,  Zeno  .        .  20 
§  6.   The  Mediators.    Empedocles,  Anaxagoras,  Leucippus  and 

Democritus       .........  24 

§  7.    The  Pythagoreans 33 

THE  GREEK  ENLIGHTENMENT.    TRANSITION  TO  THE 
STUDY  OF  MAN 

§  8.   The  Sophists 37 

§  9.  Socrates 49 

§  10.   The  Schools  of  Megara  and  Elis.    Aristippus  and  the  Cyre- 

naics.     Antisthenes  and  the  Cynics 59 

THE  SYSTEMATIC  PHILOSOPHERS 

§  II.   Plato.     The  Academy 67 

1.  Ethical  Philosophy go 

2.  Social  Philosophy 82 

3.  The  Nature  of  Knowledge.     The  Theory  of  Ideas      .  86 
§  12.   Aristotle.     The  Peripatetics 101 

1.  Metaphysics.  Logic,  Psychology          .        .        .        .102 

2.  Ethics,  Politics,  ^Esthetics 109 

xi 


xii  Contents 


THE  LATER  ETHICAL  PERIOD 

PAGE 

§  13.   Introduction •        .119 

§  14.  Epicurus  and  Epicureanism        .        .        .        .        .        .122 

§  15.  Zeno.     The  Stoics 137 

§  16.    The  Sceptics 160 

§  17.  The  Scientific  Movement.    Eclecticism.    Philo    .        .        .165 

THE  RELIGIOUS  PERIOD 

§  1 8.   Introduction 170 

§  19.   Plotinus  and  Neo-Platonism 174 

§  20.    Christianity.     The  Church  Fathers.    Augustine         .        .184 


II.    THE   MIDDLE   AGES   AND   THE   TRANSITION 
TO   MODERN   PHILOSOPHY 

THE  MIDDLE  AGES 

§  21.  Introduction 197 

§  22.   The  First  Period.    Scotus  Erigena,  Anselm,  Abelard         .     202 
§  23.   The  Second  Period.     The  Revival  of  Aristotle,  Thomas 

Aquinas,  Duns  Scotus,  William  of  Occam       .        .        .213 

TRANSITION  TO  MODERN  PHILOSOPHY 

§  24.    The  Renaissance.    Bruno 223 

§  25.  Bacon 231 

§  26.  Hobbes 242 

III.    MODERN  PHILOSOPHY 
§  27.  Introduction 251 

SYSTEMS  OF  RATIONALISM 

§  28.   Descartes.     The  Cartesian  School 257 

§  29.   Spinoza        ..........  278 

1.  Spinoza's  Metaphysics 283 

2.  The  Doctrine  of  Salvation 294 

§  30.   Leibniz 305 


Contents  xiii 
THE  GROWTH  OF  EMPIRICISM  AND  THE  ENLIGHTENMENT 

PAGE 

§  31.   Locke 322 

1.  The  Source  of  Knowledge 325 

2.  The  Nature  and  Extent  of  Knowledge        .        .        .  339 

§  32.   Berkeley 346 

§  33.  Hume 365 

§  34.    The  English  Enlightenment.    Deism.     The  Ethical  Devel- 
opment       386 

§  35.   The  French  Enlightenment.      Voltaire  and  the  Encyclo- 
pedists.     The  Materialists.      Rousseau.      Lessing  and 

Herder 395 

GERMAN  IDEALISM 

§  36.   Kant 412 

§  37.    The  Idealistic  Development.    Fichte  and  Schelling      .        .  440 

§  38.  Hegel 445 

1.  The  General  Nature  of  Hegel's  Philosophy         .        .  446 

2.  The  Stages  in  the  Development  of  Spirit    .        .        .  452 

PHILOSOPHY  SINCE  HEGEL 

§  39.   Schopenhauer 468 

§  40.    Comte  and  Positivism 479 

§  41.    Utilitarianism  and  Evolution.    Spencer     ....  487 

§  42.    Conclusion 501 

INDEX 507 


A  STUDENT'S  HISTORY 
OF  PHILOSOPHY 


INTRODUCTION 

§  i.      The  Nature   of  the  History  of  Philosophy.     Primi- 
tive Conceptions  of  the  World 

i.  WHEN  we  at  the  present  time  first  begin  to  think 
about  the  world  in  a  conscious  and  systematic  way,  we 
discover  that  our  thought  already  has  a  tendency  to  fol- 
low certain  general  lines,  which  seem  to  us  natural,  and 
sometimes  almost  inevitable.  We  find  ourselves  familiar, 
e.g.,  with  the  conception  of  a  world  of  nature  —  a  world 
wherein  lifeless  and  unconscious  bits  of  matter  group  them- 
selves according  to  unvarying  laws.  There  are  a  multitude 
of  words  which  we  use  in  speaking  of  this  material  world 
—  thing  or  substance,  cause  and  effect,  force,  law,  mechan- 
ism, necessity  ;  and  we  suppose,  ordinarily,  that  these  words 
convey  a  well-defined  and  obvious  meaning.  In  like  man- 
ner, there  is  the  very  different  world  of  the  mental  or  con- 
scious life,  described  by  such  terms  as  will,  intellect,  feeling, 
sensation.  This  also  has  laws  which  it  follows  ;  only  they 
are  what  we  call  psychological,  or  logical,  or  ethical  laws, 
in  opposition  to  the  physical  laws  of  the  outer  world. 
Finally,  while  there  is  no  general  agreement  in  our  ultimate 
religious  or  philosophical  attempts  to  sum  up  the  facts  of 
reality,  here  too  there  are  a  few  main  attitudes,  or  types  of 
theory,  within  which  our  choice  is  confined,  and  which  go 
by  such  names  as  dualism,  theism,  idealism,  materialism, 
pantheism,  agnosticism.  We  do  not  find  it  very  difficult 


2  A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

to  understand  in  a  general  way  what  these  words  mean, 
even  if  we  do  not  accept  the  theories  for  which  they 
stand. 

These  concepts,  then,  or  notions  which  we  frame  to  serve 
as  shorthand  expressions  for  certain  facts,  or  aspects  of 
reality,  come  to  us  with  so  little  labor  on  our  part,  that 
we  often  are  tempted  to  regard  them  as  self-evident,  and 
certain  to  present  themselves  as  the  manifest  points  of 
view  whenever  men  stop  to  think.  But  a  little  examina- 
tion will  show  that  this  is  a  mistake.  We  are  the  heir  of 
all  the  ages  in  our  intellectual  life,  and  so  can  utilize  the 
results  of  those  who  have  gone  before  us.  In  their  origin, 
however,  these  results  were  reached  in  no  such  simple  way 
as  their  obviousness  to  us  would  seem  to  suggest,  but  were 
wrought  laboriously  with  pain  and  travail.  It  is  a  com- 
mon experience,  after  we  have  arrived  at  the  solution  of 
some  problem  that  has  been  engaging  us,  to  be  struck 
with  wonder  that  we  should  so  long  have  been  baffled  by 
it,  when  in  reality  the  matter  is  so  plain  ;  yet,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  it  did  baffle  us.  Now  every  point  of  view  from 
which  man  regards  the  world,  is  thus  at  some  period  of  his 
history  a  hard-won  acquisition.  It  may  stand  for  a  truth 
—  an  obvious  truth  even  —  when  it  comes  to  be  recog- 
nized. But  the  mere  existence  of  a  truth  is  nothing  to  us, 
until  we  have  brought  it  into  connection  with  the  current 
of  our  own  experience  and  knowledge ;  and  this  requires 
special  circumstances  and  conditions. 

The  History  of  Philosophy  attempts  to  give  an  account 
of  the  more  important  and  comprehensive  of  these  concep- 
tions, in  terms  of  which  we  are  accustomed  to  think  of  the 
world,  and  to  trace  the  mental  and  social  conditions  out  of 
which  they  took  their  rise.  It  is  an  account  of  the  growth 
of  man's  power  to  formulate  the  universe.  To  give  some 
connected  view  of  this  growth  is  the  object  of  the  present 
volume.  But  now,  when  we  consider  the  field  which  it 
covers,  it  will  not  be  strange  if  there  are  to  be  found  in 
the  History  of  Philosophy  no  such  clearly  visible  lines  of 


Introduction  3 

development  as  certain  other  branches  of  human  knowledge 
seem  to  reveal.  When  the  subject-matter  of  investigation 
is  so  enormous,  we  can  only  expect  to  approach  the  goal 
by  zigzag  courses,  hitting  now  upon  one  aspect  of 
the  world,  now  upon  another.  In  two  obvious  ways, 
nevertheless,  we  may  look  for  an  advance.  It  may  con- 
sist simply  in  bringing  to  light  some  new  point  of  view 
which  before  had  been  neglected,  in  abstracting  some 
aspect  of  things  which  had  not  hitherto  been  clearly  iso- 
lated from  the  rest  of  experience.  Or,  instead  of  striking 
out  such  a  riew  conception,  we  may  try  to  combine  more 
organically  those  which  the  past  history  of  philosophy  has 
already  succeeded  in  elaborating.  Now,  while  progress  in 
philosophy  follows  no  single  well-marked  path,  and  we  are 
very  likely  to  lose  our  way  on  account  of  the  infinite  com- 
plexity of  the  material,  yet  in  both  these  directions  it  is 
possible  to  discover  a  real  development.  The  very  con- 
fusion of  many  points  of  view,  which  makes  the  introduc- 
tion of  order  and  unity  so  hard  a  task,  is  itself  evidence  of 
the  fact  that  a  real  development  has  taken  place.  Each  of 
these  standpoints  represents  some  significant  feature  which 
the  world  presents  ;  and  it  is  not  till  all  the  manifoldness  of 
the  world  has  been  distinguished,  and  grasped  in  an  intel- 
lectual form,  that  we  are  in  a  position  to  sum  up  our 
knowledge  so  that  it  shall  fairly  represent  the  truth.  And 
in  the  other  way,  also,  philosophy  has  progressed.  Ideas 
get  a  richer  and  more  adequate  content,  systems  become 
more  comprehensive,  as  thought  proceeds  ;  and  while  they 
may  go  by  the  same  names  as  former  systems,  in  reality 
they  mean  something  very  different.  In  spite  of  its  being 
so  frequently  asserted,  it  is  untrue  that  nothing  definitive 
has  been  the  result  of  so  much  pains  and  labor.  Many 
opinions  which  were  once  dominant  are  now  finally  super- 
seded, and  no  one  but  the  amateur  in  philosophy  would 
think  of  going  back  to  them.  They  are  superseded,  how- 
ever, not  in  the  sense  that  they  have  been  proved  entirely 
false,  and  rejected,  but  in  that  they  have  taken  their  place 


4  A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

as  a  subordinate  factor  in  a  larger  conception,  and  have 
been  interpreted  in  accordance  with  this. 

2.  If,  now,  we  throw  off  the  prejudices  which  we  have 
inherited  from  a  long  past  of  intellectual  effort,  and  at- 
tempt to  look  at  life  through  the  eyes  of  one  who  comes 
fresh  to  its  problems,  we  shall  find  ourselves  in  a  new  and 
strange  world.  We  get  some  notion  of  what  this  would 
be,  when  we  look  at  uncivilized  man  as  he  exists  at  the 
present  day.  The  sharp  lines  of  cleavage  into  which,  for 
us,  the  universe  divides,  melt  away  into  a  vague  whole  of 
indistinctness  and  intermixture.  That  fundamental  sepa- 
ration of  the  universe  into  dead  matter,  and  living,  con- 
scious soul,  has  not  yet  been  brought  about,  and  this  alone 
makes  necessary  an  entire  reconstruction  of  our  notions. 
What  the  primitive  man  is  conscious  of  is  not  a  material 
body,  and  an  immaterial  mind,  but  rather  an  acting,  feel- 
ing, thinking  body.  And  if  such  phenomena  as  dreams 
and  ghost-seeing  made  him  conceive  the  possibility  of  a 
separation  of  himself  from  his  earthly  body,  yet  this  con- 
ception never  took  the  form  of  anything  we  should  call 
immaterial.  The  inner  self,  the  soul  or  ghost,  is  still  only 
a  thinner  and  more  tenuous  body. 

And  as  no  clear  separation  was  made  between  the  man's 
own  body,  and  the  life  and  consciousness  which  inform  it, 
so  neither  could  this  separation  be  carried  over  into  the 
outer  world.  Knowing  his  own  body  as  a  living  thing, 
which  acts  according  to  desires  and  purposes,  other  things 
also  are  interpreted  by  him  after  the  same  pattern.  Stones, 
trees,  and  streams  are  living  creatures,  animated  by  the 
same  vital  impulses  that  dwell  in  men  and  animals.  This 
animistic  view  of  things  is  universal  among  primitive  peo- 
ples. Of  course  it  carries  with  it  an  absence  of  that  con- 
ception of  the  reign  of  law,  which  is  so  familiar  at  the 
present  day.  The  world  is  an  anarchic  world,  a  world  of 
miracles,  in  which  anything  whatever  may  be  expected  to 
happen.  Gods,  spirits,  and  demons  inhabit  it.  These  act 
after  their  own  arbitrary  will,  which  can  never  be  predicted 


Introduction  5 

with  certainty;  and  they  must,  therefore,  be  won  over 
with  bribes,  or  forced  into  acquiescence  by  charms  and 
magic. 

This  indistinctness  in  the  lines  of  objective  nature  is, 
however,  counterbalanced  by  a  sufficiently  exact  marking 
out  of  the  limits  within  which  man's  own  personal  and 
social  life  moves.  Here  there  is  little  of  the  freedom 
which  is  sometimes  attributed  to  the  savage  life,  but  an 
all-pervading  spirit  of  regulation.  From  birth  to  death, 
the  life  of  the  savage  is  ordered  for  him  by  custom  and 
tradition.  There  is  no  free  play  of  the  mind  about  the 
sanctions  of  conduct,  no  sense  of  proportion  in  it,  and  of 
the  relative  importance  of  things.  In  every  department 
of  life,  custom  attaches  to  itself  the  sanction  of  a  religious 
rite,  and  any  deviation  from  it  carries  the  stigma  alike  of 
religious  impiety,  and  social  treason.  Of  course  there  is  a 
reason  for  this.  Savage  customs  are,  normally,  survivals 
which  become  fixed  because  they  stand  in  some  utilitarian 
relation  to  the  needs  of  economic  life  or  tribal  organiza- 
tion. And  since  men  are  not  yet  in  a  position  where  they 
can  be  trusted  freely  to  use  their  reason,  and  to  discrimi- 
nate and  choose,  their  habits  have  to  be  riveted  upon  them 
mechanically  and  irrevocably  for  their  own  salvation.  Of 
course,  in  such  an  atmosphere,  there  can  be  none  of  that 
sense  of  individuality,  or  personality,  which  marks  the 
modern  conception  of  selfhood.  The  man  is  swallowed 
up  in  the  tribe.  So,  also,  the  intellectual  side  of  his  life, 
as  represented  in  his  beliefs  about  the  world,  and  his  reli- 
gious conceptions,  is  bound  down  so  closely  to  the  lowest 
and  most  pressing  needs  of  his  nature,  that  it  lacks  entirely 
the  freedom  and  disinterestedness  of  spirit,  the  largeness 
of  view,  which  the  acquisition  of  solid  truth  demands. 
There  is  in  it,  morever,  no  possibility  of  self-directed 
growth.  This  cannot  come  about  until  the  individual  is 
emancipated  from  his  bondage  to  custom  and  tradition, 
and  recognizes  himself  as  a  free  agent,  with  rights  and  a 
value  of  his  own,  who  can  freely  question  accepted  dogmas, 


6  A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

and  freely  modify  his   social   actions   to   meet  new   de- 
mands. 

This,  then,  will  suggest  the  general  course  which  the  his- 
tory of  civilization  is  to  follow.  Things  can  be  changed 
for  the  better,  only  as  man  ceases  passively  to  acquiesce  in 
the  dogmas  and  institutions  that  come  to  him  from  without, 
on  authority  external  to  him.  He  must  become  himself  the 
centre  of  initiative,  who  can  trace  all  these  objective  crys- 
tallizations of  thought  and  conduct  back  to  their  source  in 
his  own  nature,  and  control  and  modify  them  accordingly. 
This,  however,  necessitates  an  intervening  period  of  stress 
and  change.  Existing  beliefs  and  social  forms  have  to  be 
disintegrated  to  give  room  for  the  expanding  spirit;  and 
for  a  time  there  will  be  chaos  and  anarchy,  until  man  has 
learned  how  to  use  his  new-found  liberty.  Of  this  progress 
of  civilization,  the  history  of  philosophic  thought  is  one 
aspect ;  and  this  is  the  third  and  more  ultimate  way  in 
which  we  can  look  to  find  a  unity  in  it.  Thought  is  but  an 
instrument  by  which  man  attempts  to  bring  himself  into 
harmony  with  life ;  and  therefore  the  inner  spring  of 
thought's  movement  will  be  found  in  that  underlying  pro- 
cess of  life,  which  we  know  as  history.  The  final  goal,  on 
the  philosophic  side,  is  such  a  statement  of  the  world  as 
shall  enable  man  to  feel  at  home  in  it,  and  see  himself  as  a 
unified  and  harmonious  being  in  all  the  expressions  of  his  i 
nature.  On  the  side  of  life  itself,  or  history,  the  goal  con-  * 
sists  in  realizing  this  unity  practically,  —  a  unity,  not  of 
mere  confused  feeling,  as  in  the  beginning,  but  of  clear 
and  conscious  knowledge,  which  grasps  the  principles  of 
its  own  action,  and  so  can  direct  it  freely  to  rational  ends. 

GENERAL  LITERATURE 
WHOLE  PERIOD: 

Erdmann,  History  of  Philosophy,  3  vols. 
Hegel,  History  of  Philosophy,  3  vols. 
Lange,  History  of  Materialism,  3  vols. 
Lewes,  Biographical  History  of  Philosophy. 


Introduction  7 

Draper,  History  of  the  Intellectual  Development  of  Europe,  2  vols. 

Schwegler,  History  of  Philosophy. 

Weber,  History  of  Philosophy . 

Windelband,  History  of  Philosophy. 

Turner,  History  of  Philosophy. 

Sidgwick,  History  of  Ethics. 

Ueberweg,  History  of  Philosophy,  2  vols. 

Hunter,  History  of  Philosophy, 

Davidson,  A  History  of  Education. 

Janet  and  Sdailles,  A  History  of  the  Problems  of  Philosophy. 

Articles  in  Encyclopaedia  Britannica. 

ANCIENT  PHILOSOPHY: 

Benn,  The  Greek  Philosophers,  2  vols. 

Benn,    The    Philosophy  of   Greece  considered  in    Relation  to  the 

Character  and  History  of  its  People. 
Burt,  History  of  Greek  Philosophy. 
Grote,  History  of  Greece. 
Ferrier,  Lectures  on  Greek  Philosophy,  2  vols. 
Mayor,  Sketch  of  Ancient  Philosophy  from  Thales  to  Cicero. 
Windelband,  History  of  Greek  Philosophy. 
Zeller,  Outlines  of  the  History  of  Greek  Philosophy. 
Marshall,  Short  History  of  Greek  Philosophy. 
Gomperz,  The  Greek  Thinkers,  3  vols. 

Diogenes  Laertius,  Lives  of  the  Philosophers  (Bohn's  Library). 
Bussell,  The  School  of  Plato. 

Caird,  The  Evolution  of  Theology  in  the  Greek  Philosophers. 
Hyde,  From  Epicurus  to  Christ. 

MODERN  PHILOSOPHY: 

H  off ding.  History  of  Modern  Philosophy,  2  vols. 

Royce,  Spirit  of  Modern  Philosophy. 

Burt,  History  of  Modern  Philosophy,  2  vols. 

Falckenberg,  History  of  Modern  Philosophy. 

Cousin,  History  of  Modern  Philosophy,  2  vols. 

Lecky,  History  of  the  Rise  and  Influence  of  the  Spirit  of  Rationalism 

in  Europe,  2  vols. 

Adamson,  The  Development  of  Modern  Philosophy,  2  vols. 
Levy-Bruhl,  History  of  Modern  Philosophy  in  France. 
Dewing,  Introduction  to  the  History  of  Modern  Philosophy. 


I.     GREEK    PHILOSOPHY 

THE  SCIENTIFIC  PERIOD 
§  2.    The  Origin  of  Greek  Philosophy 

I.  THE  beginnings  of  philosophy  are  commonly  attrib- 
uted to  the  Greeks.  Of  course  before  the  time  of  the 
Greeks,  men  had  thought  about  the  meaning  of  things  ;  but 
the  conditions  had  been  lacking  which  were  necessary  to 
precipitate  their  thought  into  sufficiently  well-defined  con- 
cepts to  serve  as  effective  intellectual  tools.  The  task  of 
forging  the  intellectual  framework,  in  the  shape  of  abstract 
ideas  or  generalizations,  by  means  of  which  it  should  be 
possible  to  analyze,  and  bring  into  order,  the  incoherency 
of  the  world  as  it  makes  its  first  impression  upon  us,  fell 
to  the  Greek  mind.  And  for  this  task  it  had  special  quali- 
fications. Its  sanity,  its  healthy  human  interest,  its  clear- 
ness of  vision  and  hostility  to  confused  ness  of  every  sort, 
its  sense  of  measure,  and  the  single-heartedness  with  which 
it  confined  itself  within  the  field  of  concrete  fact  where 
it  felt  at  home,  enabled  it  to  leave  behind,  as  no  previous 
race  had  done,  an  articulate  objective  expression  of  itself 
which  survived  its  own  existence,  and  could  enter  into  the 
spiritual  history  of  mankind.  All  these  qualities  relate 
themselves  closely  to  the  artistic  temperament  of  which 
Greece  is  pre-eminently  the  type,  and  between  which  and 
the  philosophic  spirit  there  is  an  intimate  connection.  The 
same  sense  for  form  and  proportion  which  enabled  the 
Greek  to  originate  the  art  types  that  have  stood  as  models 
ever  since,  kept  him  within  the  bounds  of  clearly  defined 
ideas  in  his  philosophical  thinking,  and  prevented  him  from 
losing  himself  in  the  realm  of  vague  feeling,  and  adumbra- 

8 


Greek  Philosophy  9 

tions  of  the  infinite,  which  have  brought  shipwreck  to  so 
many  attempts  at  philosophizing,  and  which,  whatever  their 
meaning  to  the  individual,  have  no  objective  significance, 
until  a  foundation  at  least  of  clear  conceptions  has  first  been 
acquired.  The  Greek  frankly  moved  within  the  realm  of  the 
finite,  where  definition  and  order  reigned,  and  he  could 
know  just  what  he  was  talking  about.  The  infinite  was  to 
him  the  region  of  chaos,  and  stood  on  a  distinctly  lower 
plane  of  reality. 

So  also,  along  with  its  feeling  for  form,  the  artistic  spirit 
involves  a  certain  disinterestedness  of  mood.  Beauty,  as 
Kant  has  said,  gives  us  pleasure  in  the  mere  contemplation 
of  itself,  apart  from  the  vulgar  thoughts  of  possession  and 
use.  And  this  quality,  too,  enters  into  the  philosophical 
attitude.  Long  before  the  time  of  the  Greeks,  there  had 
been  a  very  considerable  development  of  knowledge  in  the 
Orient,  particularly  in  Egypt  and  Chaldaea  ;  and  the  Greeks 
were  able  to  presuppose  and  to  build  upon  this.  But  the 
attitude  which  they  adopted  toward  this  knowledge  was 
their  own.  Previous  science  had  been  on  the  empirical  and 
rule  of  thumb  order,  not  based  on  essential  principles ;  it 
had  remained  largely  bound  down  to  the  concrete  particu- 
lars, and  to  the  practical  uses  from  which  it  had  sprung. 
Geometry,  e.g.,  was  cultivated  in  Egypt,  whence  the  Greeks 
derived  it ;  but  it  was  cultivated  as  little  more  than  a  set 
of  approximate  rules  for  use  in  land  measuring.  We  do 
not  have  philosophy  proper  until  we  can  get  clear  of  the 
entanglement  of  special  cases,  and  practical  utility,  and 
take  a  disinterested  delight  in  principles  on  their  own 
account ;  and  this  the  Greek  temperament  was  able  to 
accomplish.  It  could  find  pleasure  in  the  free  play  of 
ideas  for  their  own  sake,  could  treat  them  as  a  work  of  art, 
apart  from  their  immediate  practical  bearing ;  and  the 
existence  of  this  attitude  is  marked  by  the  rise  of  Philoso- 
phy, or  disinterested  love  of  wisdom  as  such. 

It  was  not,  however,  in  Athens,  which  stands  to  us  as  the 
centre  of  Greek  culture,  nor  in  any  other  of  the  cities  of 


io          A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

Greece  proper,  that  the  new  intellectual  movement  began. 
It  was  rather  in  the  Greek  colonies,  which  the  mother 
country  had  from  very  early  times  begun  to  throw  off,  — 
first  in  the  Eastern  colonies  of  Asia  Minor,  and  then  in 
Southern  Italy.  Athens  itself,  even  at  the  height  of  its 
power,  never  took  very  kindly  to  freedom  of  philosophic 
speculation,  and  was  inclined  to  treat  its  prophets  with  a 
full  measure  of  the  traditional  severity.  The  political 
fickleness  incident  to  a  popular  government,  and  the  reli- 
gious intolerance  on  the  part  of  the  masses,  resulted  in 
more  than  one  act  of  injustice,  of  which  the  judicial  mur- 
der of  Socrates  is  of  course  the  most  famous  instance. 
"Then  I  must  indeed  be  a  fool,"  Socrates  is  made  to 
say  to  Callicles  in  one  of  Plato's  dialogues,  "  if  I  do  not 
know  that  in  the  Athenian  state  any  man  can  suffer  any- 
thing." 

In  the  colonies,  however,  tendencies  were  at  work 
which  already  had  greatly  weakened  the  force  of  these 
unfavorable  conditions,  long  before  the  breath  of  the  new 
spirit  had  touched  Greece  itself.  The  transplanting  of 
Greek  life  to  a  new  home,  necessarily  resulted  in  a  gen- 
eral shaking  up  of  former  habits  of  thought.  Ceremonial 
observances,'  and  the  religious  beliefs  embodied  in  the  na- 
tional mythologies,  could  not  fail  to  lose  something  of  their 
rigidity  and  inevitableness,  as  their  roots  were  torn  from 
the  local  environment,  and  the  concrete  spots  and  objects 
to  which  they  were  attached  ;  and  the  further  adjustment 
that  would  have  continually  to  go  on,  as  they  came  into 
competition  with  more  or  less  antagonistic  traditions,  would 
tend  still  further  to  beget  a  temper  of  openness  and  flexi- 
bility. In  Asia  Minor,  moreover,  the  colonists  were  brought 
in  contact  with  the  highest  culture  and  learning  of  the  day. 
The  new  knowledge  of  the  world,  which  was  open  to  them 
in  their  character  as  a  race  of  seafarers  and  traders,  was 
also  continually  enlarging  their  ideas,  and  breaking  down 
the  superstitions  of  mythology.  Their  active  and  adven- 
turous life  gave  them  a  versatility  and  alertness  of  mind, 


Greek  Philosophy  1 1 

which  was  as  yet  wanting  to  their  less  enterprising  kins- 
men ;  while  the  rapid  fortunes  which  were  thus  built  up  in 
trade  by  the  merchant  princes,  offered  the  possibility  of 
the  leisure  which  the  intellectual  life  demands.  It  was  at 
Miletus,  the  wealthy  and  active  Ionian  capital,  on  the  coast 
of  the  ^Egean,  that  the  new  intellectual  movement  found  its 
centre ;  and  accordingly  the  earliest  school  of  Greek  phi- 
losophy is  known  as  the  Milesian  School. 

2.  Our  knowledge  of  the  beginnings  of  Greek  philosophy 
is  very  fragmentary,  and  it  is  only  with  difficulty  that  it 
can  be  pieced  together  to  form  a  connected  whole.  Still  it 
is  possible  to  read  into  it  a  certain  amount  of  unity.  At 
any  rate,  it  is  clear  that,  within  this  century  and  a  half, 
there  gradually  emerged  the  more  fundamental  of  those 
distinctions  and  terms,  by  which  the  mind  attempts  to  intro- 
duce order  and  connection  into  the  processes  of  the  world. 
They  were  grasped  in  a  definite,  even  though  rudimentary 
way,  and  were  consciously  employed  in  attempts  to  build  up 
a  comprehensive  view  of  the  universe.  This  took  place, 
however,  within  certain  limits,  which  need  to  be  kept  in 
mind  continually.  It  is  necessary  to  recall,  once  more,  that 
the  fundamental  distinction  between  consciousness  and 
matter  has  not  yet  been  clearly  attained.  Mental  qualities 
and  physical  qualities  are  still  more  or  less  mixed  up 
together.  There  is,  consequently,  as  yet  no  conception  of 
a  strictly  immaterial  existence.  Real  existence  is  that 
which  lies  outside  us  in  space,  which  we  can  see  and  touch ; 
and  nothing  else  is  real.  It  is  true  that  this  material  and 
spatial  existence  is  not  wholly  identical  with  the  modern 
conception  of  matter,  for  it  has  to  find  room  within  itself 
for  qualities  which  we  call  conscious  and  mental.  But  if 
matter  was  not  regarded  as  dead  and  unconscious,  at  least 
there  was  no  way  of  separating  mind,  or  thought,  from  its 
spatial  embodiment.  To  attempt  to  think  of  anything  that 
was  not  material  in  its  nature,  and  so  space-filling,  was  to 
think  of  nothing.  Within  the  limitations  of  this  inability 
to  conceive  of  anything  as  real,  which  did  not  have  tangible 


12          A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

and  visible  reality,  the  first  period  of  philosophical  thought 
moved.  And  the  outgrowing  of  the  assumption  which  this 
involves,  may  be  regarded  as  one  of  the  main  results,  for 
the  development  of  thought,  of  the  entire  period.  The 
speculative  difficulties  which  philosophy  meets  on  the 
basis  of  this  assumption,  pave  the  way  to  a  recognition,  in 
Plato,  of  the  possibility  that  a  thing  may  be  real,  with- 
out being  identical  with  spatial  reality ;  and  when  this 
point  is  reached,  an  entirely  new  field  is  opened  up  to 
thought. 

§  3.    The  Milesian  School.     Thales 

I.  The  first  attempts  at  philosophy,  then,  are  occupied 
with  the  only  world  which  men  can  present  clearly  to  them- 
selves —  the  world  of  nature.  In  general,  these  attempts 
take  the  shape  of  a  search  for  some  unitary  principle  for  ex- 
plaining the  world,  some  one  kind  of  real  existence  out  of 
which  the  diversity  of  the  universe  has  sprung,  some  per- 
manent ground  lying  back  of  the  never  ending  process  of 
change.  The  decisive  step  is  attributed  to  Thales,  a  mem- 
ber of  one  of  the  leading  families  of  Miletus,  and  a  man 
apparently  versed  in  the  learning  current  at  his  time. 
He  is  said  to  have  predicted  the  eclipse  occurring  in  the 
year  585  B.C.,  which  put  an  end  to  the  war  between  the 
Lydians  and  the  Medes. 

All  that  is  known  of  Thales'  answer  is  this :  that  he 
found  the  ultimate  substance  in  water.  In  the  light  of 
modern  science,  this  may  seem  to  be  absurdly  inadequate 
as  a  statement  of  the  universe  ;  but  the  new  attitude  which 
it  involves,  gives  it  a  real  significance.  There  had  been  cos- 
mologies from  time  immemorial,  which  attempted  to  ac- 
count for  the  origin  of  the  world  by  all  sorts  of  fancies,  and 
which  had  gathered  about  them  the  sanctions  of  religion. 
Thales  broke  from  the  sway  of  religious  tradition,  and  from 
its  whole  method,  by  adopting  what  was  essentially  a  scien- 
tific, as  opposed  to  a  mythological,  point  of  view.  Instead 


Greek  Philosophy  13 

of  a  supernatural,  he  attempted  a  natural  explanation ; 
instead  of  telling  a  mythical  story  of  what  might  have  hap- 
pened in  the  past,  he  looked  to  the  world  of  fact  as  it  actu- 
ally lay  before  his  eyes,  in  order  to  find  there  his  principle 
of  interpretation.  And  it  is  possible  to  see  reasons  why  he 
should  have  hit  upon  the  answer  which  he  did.  Water  has 
that  mobility  which  might  seem  to  go  along  with  the  power 
of  universal  transformation.  It  is  easily  changed  to  steam, 
and  solidified  to  ice.  It  is  essential  to  growth  and  genera- 
tion everywhere.  The  process  of  transformation  might 
appear  to  be  taking  place  visibly  in  nature.  The  sun  draws 
water,  which  then  is  given  back  in  the  form  of  rain ;  and 
the  rain,  in  turn,  sinks  into  the  ground,  where  it  completes 
the  process  by  turning  into  earth,  and  the  manifold  prod- 
ucts of  the  soil.  Of  Thales'  followers,  it  is  enough  to  men- 
tion the  names  of  Anaximander  and  Anaximenes.  The 
school  as  an  organization  came  to  an  end  with  the  destruc- 
tion of  Miletus  by  the  Persians  in  494  B.C. 

2.  In  their  beginnings,  philosophy  and  science  are  thus 
identical.  The  Milesians  are  physicists  and  astronomers, 
bringing  their  hypotheses  to  bear,  first  of  all,  upon  the  natu- 
ral processes  which  constitute  the  subject-matter  of  science; 
and  the  same  interest  continues  also  to  play  a  large  part 
in  the  work  of  their  successors.  Each  has  his  more  or  less 
novel  theories  to  propound  concerning  the  general  course 
of  the  world's  development,  and  the  explanation  of  the 
phenomena  which  it  presents;  particularly  of  such  facts 
as  might  naturally  be  expected  to  interest  a  seafaring  peo- 
ple—  meteorological  phenomena,  and  the  movements  of 
the  heavenly  bodies.  It  would  only  be  confusing  to  give 
an  account  of  these  theories  here ;  but  it  should  never  be 
forgotten  that  we  are  dealing  throughout  with  what  is  essen- 
tially a  physical  and  scientific  philosophy. 

But  also  there  begins,  at  this  point,  a  development  with 
a  more  purely  philosophical  interest.  This  development 
occupies  itself,  not  only  with  the  explanation  of  concrete 
physical  processes,  but  also  with  the  ideas  which  are 


14  A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

presupposed  in  the  intellectual  formulation  of  these  pro- 
cesses, and  with  the  logical  and  metaphysical  implications 
of  such  ideas.  These  ideas,  it  is  true,  are  not  yet  fully  ab- 
stracted from  their  physical  embodiment,  and  looked  at 
wholly  apart  from  the  physical  processes  which  imply  them; 
but  the  interest  is  in  the  ideas,  nevertheless.  And  the 
centre  about  which  the  controversy  turns  is  the  concept  of 
change,  a  concept  which  involves  one  of  the  most  funda- 
mental problems  with  which  metaphysics  has  to  deal. 
The  Milesians  had  assumed  the  fact  of  change  as  some- 
thing self-evident,  and  they  had  assumed,  too,  that  there 
must  be  an  underlying  unity  to  this  changing  world.  But 
here  are  two  ideas  which  are  sure  to  make  trouble  as  soon 
as  they  are  distinctly  recognized.  The  reality  which 
changes  must  all  the  time  be  one  and  the  same  reality  at 
bottom,  or  there  is  no  meaning  in  the  statement  that  it 
changes.  Nothing  changes,  except  as  it  becomes  different 
from  what  it  was  before ;  and  there  is  no  " it,"  no  "something 
which  changes,"  unless  there  is  an  identity,  or  sameness, 
which  persists  through  the  successive  moments  of  change. 
And  yet  if  it  changes,  it  must  be  different  from  itself,  and 
so  not  one  reality,  but  more  than  one;  it  must  at  once 
persist,  and  pass  away.  How  are  these  seemingly  very  op- 
posite notions  —  the  one  and  the  many,  sameness  and  dif- 
ference, permanence  and  change  —  to  be  reconciled  and 
combined  ?  The  next  step  in  Greek  philosophy,  was  to 
bring  about  a  clear  recognition  of  this  problem.  In  Her- 
acleitus,  and  in  Parmenides,  the  two  opposing  factors  re- 
ceive each  a  formulation,  one-sided>  indeed,  but  for  that 
reason  all  the  more  impressive  and  influential.  Later  on, 
in  the  mediating  schools  which  succeeded,  the  attempt  is 
made  to  bring  about  a  reconciliation. 

§  4.    Heracleitus 

The  side  of  multiplicity  and  change  was  championed  by 
Heracleitus,  one  of   the  profoundest   thinkers  of   ancient 


Greek  Philosophy  15 

times.  Heracleitus  was  an  Ephesian,  of  aristocratic  fam- 
ily and  high  position,  who  lived  about  536-470  B.C.  There 
was  much,  indeed,  in  the  political  condition  of  the  cities 
of  Asia  Minor,  to  force  the  stern  reality  of  change  upon 
men's  notice.  This  shows  itself  in  the  lyric  poetry  of 
the  period,  with  its  graceful  melancholy,  and  its  fond- 
ness for  dwelling  upon  the  endless  vicissitudes  of  fortune, 
and  the  uncertainty  of  human  life  and  happiness.  Apart 
from  the  perils  which  grew  out  of  external  relations  to  the 
great  Oriental  powers,  there  was  also,  within  each  city,  an 
ever  present  danger  from  civil  strife.  The  aristocratic  gov- 
ernments which  had  replaced  the  monarchies  of  Homeric 
times,  were  themselves  now  in  conflict  with  the  people; 
and  everywhere  tyrants  were  springing  up,  who  made  use 
of  the  popular  favor  to  overthrow  existing  authority,  only 
to  retain  in  their  own  hands,  by  force,  the  power  they  were 
thus  enabled  to  usurp.  Heracleitus  was  among  those  who 
had  suffered  from  these  conditions,  and  it  was  his  con- 
tempt for  the  democratic  tendencies  of  his  day  which 
turned  him  from  public  life  to  philosophical  pursuits.  His 
reputation  for  gloomy  misanthropy  gave  him  in  antiquity 
the  title  of  the  Weeping  Philosopher;  while  the  Delphic 
character  of  his  writings  —  they  require,  says  Socrates,  a 
Delian  diver  to  get  at  the  meaning  of  them  —  caused  him 
to  be  designated  as  Heradeitu.-  the  Obscure. 

Heracleitus  gets  rid  of  the  difficulty  of  reconciling  per- 
manence with  change,  by  the  simple  denial  that  any  such 
thing  as  permanence  exists  at  all.  There  is  no  static  Be- 
ing, no  unchanging  substratum.  Change,  movement,  is 
Lord  of  the  universe.  Everything  is  in  a  state  of  becom- 
ing, of  continual  flux  (Trdvra  pel).  "  You  cannot  step  twice 
into  the  same  rivers,  for  fresh  waters  are  ever  flowing  in 
upon  you." *  Man  is  no  exception  to  the  general  rule  ;  he 
is  "kindled  and  put  out  like  a  light  in  the  night-time." 
Heracleitus  formulates  this  conception  by  saying  that  — 

1  This,  and  succeeding  quotations  from  the  earlier  philosophers,  are  taken 
from  Burnet's  "Early  Greek  Philosophers  "  (A.  &  C.  Black). 


1 6          A   Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

not  Water  or  Mist,  but  —  Fire  is  the  ultimate  ground  of 
the  world.  "  All  things  are  exchanged  for  Fire,  and  Fire 
for  all  things,  as  wares  are  exchanged  for  gold,  and  gold 
for  wares."  This  is  not  intended  to  be  figurative ;  Hera- 
cleitus  means  literal  fire,  just  as  Thales  meant  literal 
water.  But  it  is  fire  as  embodying  primarily  the  fact  of 
change;  that  is  why  he  chooses  it,  rather  than  earth  or 
water.  Nor  could  his  thought  have  found  a  better  embod- 
iment than  in  the  all-transforming,  shifting  flame,  ever 
passing  away  in  smoke,  ever  renewing  itself  by  taking  up 
the  substance  of  solid  bodies,  which  are  undergoing  destruc- 
tion that  it  may  live.  We  have  the  appearance  of  perma- 
nence, just  as  the  flame  seems  to  be  an  identical  thing  ;  in 
reality,  however,  its  content  is  every  moment  changing. 

Now  this  doctrine  —  that  everything,  as  Plato  mali- 
ciously puts  it,  is  in  a  flux  like  leaky  vessels,  that  there 
is  no  rest  or  permanence  anywhere  in  the  universe,  no 
solid  foothold  which  is  not,  the  very  moment  we  try  to 
occupy  it,  silently  shifting  beneath  us  —  seems  at  first  to  be 
paradoxical  and  unwarranted.  We  are  not  satisfied  to  give 
up  all  identity  and  permanence  in  things.  If  what  we 
call  a  white  object,  e.g.,  has  already  come  to  be  something 
different  before  we  can  give  a  name  to  it,  how  are  we  to 
make  any  articulate  utterance  at  all  ?  When  we  reflect, 
however,  we  see  that,  in  spite  of  the  difficulties,  this  is 
very  similar  to  the  doctrine  of  modern  science.  For  sci- 
ence, too,  there  is  nothing  that  stands  still.  The  stone 
that  seems  to  lie  unchanged  and  motionless  is,  on  the 
one  hand,  whirling  through  space  along  with  the  planet 
which  bears  us  with  it  on  its  surface,  while,  on  the  other 
hand,  it  is  itself  a  little  world  of  quivering  molecules,  a 
battle-ground  of  struggling  forces,  where  the  most  intense 
activity  reigns.  Our  own  bodies,  likewise,  are  changing 
every  moment  of  our  lives,  and  our  minds  are  changing 
with  them.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  stopping  the  flow 
of  consciousness,  without  blotting  it  out  altogether.  Hera- 
cleitus  has,  accordingly,  emphasized  a  very  important  fea- 


Greek  Philosophy  17 

ture  of  reality,  which  will  need  to  be  taken  account  of  in 
every  future  attempt  at  philosophizing. 

Is  there,  then,  no  unity  at  all  to  the  world  ?  If  so,  how 
can  we  account  for  even  the  appearance  of  permanence  ? 
Heracleitus  does  not  deny  that  there  is  a  unity,  and  here 
also  he  anticipates  the  conception  of  modern  science.  For 
the  unity  is  not  one  of  unchanging  substance,  but  of  law. 
The  process  of  change  does  not  take  place  in  an  un- 
regulated and  lawless  way,  but  it  is  rliytlimical  change, 
kept  within  the  bounds  of  definite  proportions,  and  ruled 
by  an  immutable  law  of  necessity.  As  the  heavenly  fires 
are  transmuted  successively  into  vapor,  water,  earth,  so  a 
corresponding  series  of  transformations  ascends  upward  to 
fire  again,  only  to  start  once  more  on  the  same  ceaseless 
round.  The  universe  is,  therefore,  a  closed  circuit,  in  which 
an  ascending  and  a  descending  current  counterbalance 
each  other.  It  is  this  opposition  of  motions,  and  the 
measured  balance  between  them,  which  produces  the  de- 
lusive appearance  of  rest  and  fixity. 

Nothing  in  the  world,  then,  is  self-contained  and  self- 
complete.  Everything  is  forever  passing  into  something 
else,  and  has  an  existence  only  in  relation  to  this  process. 
"  Fire  lives  the  death  of  earth,  and  air  lives  the  death  of 
fire ;  water  lives  the  death  of  air,  earth  that  of  water." 
We  have,  accordingly,  in  Heracleitus,  the  first  philosophic 
statement  of  the  famous  doctrine  of  relativity,  which,  in 
one  form  or  another,  has  played  an  important  part  in  sub- 
sequent thought  down  to  the  present  day.  Heracleitus' 
conception  of  the  two  contrary  currents  of  change,  enables 
him  to  formulate  his  doctrine  more  precisely ;  not  only  is 
everything  passing  into  something  else,  but  it  is  forever 
passing  into  its  opposite.  All  reality  is  born  of  the  clash 
of  opposing  principles,  the  tension  of  conflicting  forces. 
"  Homer  was  wrong  in  saying :  Would  that  strife  might 
perish  from  among  gods  and  men !  He  did  not  see  that 
he  was  praying  for  the  destruction  of  the  universe;  for, 
if  his  prayer  were  heard,  all  things  would  pass  away." 


1 8  A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

Strife  is  "father  of  all,  and  king  of  all."  This  relativity, 
and  union  of  contrasts,  Heracleitus  is  never  weary  of  trac- 
ing out.  Organic  life  is  produced  by  the  male  and  the 
female ;  musical  harmony  by  sharp  and  flat  notes.  "  The 
sea  is  the  purest  and  the  impurest  water.  Fish  can  drink  it 
and  it  is  good  for  them ;  to  men  it  is  undrinkable  and  de- 
structive." "  God  is  day  and  night,  winter  and  summer,  war 
and  peace,  hunger  and  satiety ;  but  he  takes  various  shapes, 
just  as  fire,  when  it  is  mingled  with  different  incenses,  is 
named  according  to  the  savor  of  each." 

The  same  thought  enabled  Heracleitus  to  round  out  his 
philosophy  by  a  suggestive  treatment  of  the  ethical  life. 
Just  as  the  light  and  the  heavy,  the  warm  and  the  cold, 
plenty  and  want,  are  relative  terms,  so  likewise  are  good 
and  evil.  "  Physicians  who  cut,  burn,  stab,  and  rack  the 
sick,  then  complain  that  they  do  not  get  any  adequate 
recompense  for  it."  "  Men  would  not  have  known  the 
name  of  justice  if  there  were  no  injustice."  "It  is  not 
good  for  men  to  get  all  they  wish.  It  is  disease  that 
makes  health  pleasant  and  good ;  hunger,  plenty ;  and 
weariness,  rest."  Good  implies  evil  to  be  overcome,  con- 
quests to  be  made,  a  life  of  unremitting  endeavor.  It  is  no 
gift  that  we  may  sit  and  wait  for  with  folded  hands,  but 
an  achievement.  So  also  the  bad  has  no  existence,  except 
in  relation  to  a  possible  better.  Were  either  of  the  related 
terms  wanting,  the  moral  life  would  cease  to  exist. 

One  other  problem  begins  faintly  to  emerge  in  Hera- 
cleitus— the  problem  of  knowledge.  Since  the  vulgar  notion 
is  that  the  things  which  the  senses  reveal  to  us  are  more 
or  less  solid  and  permanent,  a  distinction  has  to  be  drawn 
between  sense  knowledge,  and  the  higher  thought  knowl- 
edge which  is  open  to  the  philosopher.  True  knowledge 
is  no  easy  transcript  of  popular  opinion,  but  the  scanty 
gleanings  of  hard  intellectual  labor :  "  Those  who  seek  for 
gold  dig  up  much  earth,  and  find  a  little."  Sense  experi- 
ence is  fallacious,  and  the  source  of  all  sorts  of  illusion ;  it 
is  only  by  thought  that  we  can  rise  above  the  realm  of 


Greek  Philosophy  19 

changing  appearance,  and  attain  to  true  reality  —  the  gov- 
erning Law.  But  it  is  not  at  all  apparent  how  we  are  to 
account  for  this  difference  of  value.  Knowledge  is  due  to 
the  response  between  the  inner  Fire  which  constitutes  our 
rational  nature,  or  soul,  and  the  outer  Fire  which  is  the  re- 
ality of  the  world.  But  since  the  two  can  only  commingle 
by  the  pathway  of  the  senses,  there  is  no  means  as  yet 
of  drawing  a  psychological  distinction  between  sensation 
and  thought.  The  objectivity  and  necessity  of  knowl- 
edge is  given,  however,  a  certain  explanation.  Man  can 
know  objective  truth,  because  in  essence  he  is  identical 
with  that  truth ;  he  is  no  mere  separate  individual,  but  a 
part  of  the  all-comprehending  Fire  which  constitutes  the 
universe. 

The  answer  which  Heracleitus  gave  to  the  problem  of 
philosophy,  is  one  which  is  likely  to  grow  in  force  the  more 
one  thinks  of  it.  But  can  we  ever  be  really  satisfied  with 
it  ?  Can  the  fact  of  law  furnish  all  the  unity  and  perma- 
nence that  we  require?  Will  not  the  conception  of  law, 
in  connection  with  the  material  world,  only  raise  new  ques- 
tions ?  What  is  a  law,  over  and  above  the  multitude  of 
particular  facts  and  changes,  each  distinct  and  unrelated  ? 
If  it  is  only  an  ideal  fact  in  our  minds,  it  has  no  relation  to 
the  material  world  without ;  and  if  it  is  a  material  fact, 
does  it  not  furnish  simply  another  element  to  be  brought 
into  unity,  and  not  a  unifying  bond  at  all  ?  At  any  rate,  it 
hardly  satisfies  our  first  feeling  of  what  the  situation  de- 
mands. We  instinctively  require  a  solid  and  permanent 
background  for  this  universal  flow  of  events,  an  unchanging 
subject  of  change,  which  shall  bind  the  multiplicity  into  a 
real  whole,  and  give  us  a  definite  something  to  grasp  and 
rest  upon,  that  shall  not  be  forever  slipping  from  us.  This 
factor  of  permanence,  of  static  Being,  which  Heracleitus 
denied,  is  brought  into  an  equally  one-sided  prominence  by 
an  opposing  group  of  thinkers,  whose  connection  with  the 
city  of  Elea,  in  Southern  Italy,  has  given  them  the  name 
of  the  Eleatic  School. 


2O          A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

§  $.    The  Eleatic  School.    Xenophanes.    Parmenides.    Zeno 

I.  The  reputed  founder  of  the  Eleatic  school  was  Xenoph- 
anes  (570-480  B.C.),  a  native  of  Colophon,  whence  he  fled 
in  consequence  of  the  Persian  conquest  of  Ionia.  He 
maintained  himself  as  a  wandering  poet,  or  rhapsodist,  and 
finally  settled  down  in  Elea,  where  he  died  at  an  advanced 
age.  In  spite  of  his  place  among  philosophers,  Xenoph- 
anes  seems  to  have  been  not  so  much  a  metaphysician, 
as  a  poet  turned  satirist  and  reformer.  As  a  satirist,  he 
sets  himself  against  the  somewhat  florid  culture  of  Magna 
Graecia,  with  its  luxuries,  its  purple  garments,  its  fops 
"  proud  of  their  comely  locks,  anointed  with  unguents  of 
rich  perfume,"  in  favor  of  an  ideal  of  plain  living  and  high 
thinking,  of  Greek  simplicity,  moderation,  and  artistic  good 
taste.  He  ridicules  the  exaggerated  athleticism  of  the  day, 
the  preference  of  muscle  to  brains,  "  strength  to  wisdom," 
the  immaturity  and  affectation  of  the  intellectual  interests. 
"There  is  nothing  praiseworthy  in  discussing  battles  of 
Titans,  or  of  giants  and  centaure,  fictions  of  former  ages, 
nor  in  plotting  violent  revolutions."  In  opposition  to  this, 
he  strives  to  exalt  the  true  intellectual  life ;  and  the  very 
modern  tone  which  pervades  his  conception  of  what  such 
a  life  is,  shows  clearly  how  far  Greek  thought  has  already 
advanced.  It  is  modern  in  its  sceptical  caution, .and  its 
feeling  for  the  necessity  of  sober  truth-seeking  and  in- 
vestigation. "  There  never  was  nor  will  be  a  man  who 
has  clear  certainty  as  to  what  I  say  about  the  gods  and 
about  all  things ;  for  even  if  he  does  chance  to  say  what 
is  right,  yet  he  himself  does  not  know  that  it  is  so. 
But  all  are  free  to  guess."  "The  gods  have  not  shown 
forth  all  things  to  men  from  the  beginning,  but  by  seeking 
they  gradually  find  out  what  is  better."  It  is  especially 
modern  in  its  thorough  naturalism.  And  here  Xenophanes 
comes  in  contact  with  religious  beliefs,  in  connection  with 
which  his  influence  was  to  tell  most  directly  on  the  future. 

At  the  start,  philosophy  had  grown  directly  out  of  reli- 


Greek  Philosophy  21 

gious  speculations.  It  was  not  the  independent  work  of  sin- 
gle men,  but  rather  of  schools,  or  guilds,  which  had,  and 
continued  to  have  for  some  time,  a  religious  or  semi-reli- 
gious organization.  There  will  be  occasion  to  notice  again 
the  close  connection  of  religion  and  philosophy  in  the 
Pythagorean  school.  But  when  the  change  to  the  scientific 
attitude  was  once  effected,  the  tendency  was  necessarily 
away  from  the  religious  dogmas.  The  whole  philosophical 
movement  was,  from  the  religious  standpoint,  a  scepti- 
cal one.  Within  the  schools,  belief  in  the  old  polythe- 
istic mythology  was  quietly  dropped,  as  suited  only  for  the 
masses ;  and  in  its  place  were  set  up  more  or  less  purely 
naturalistic  explanations.  Xenophanes  was  not  content  to 
leave  this  as  a  mere  esoteric  doctrine.  His  impatience 
of  the  intellectual  futility,  and  low  moral  grade,  of  many 
of  the  old  beliefs  and  stories  about  the  gods,  leads  him  to 
a  fierce  polemic  against  the  popular  theology.  "  Homer 
and  Hesiod  have  ascribed  to  the  gods  all  things  that  are 
a  shame  and  a  disgrace  among  men,  thefts  and  adulteries 
and  deceptions  of  one  another."  "But  mortals  think  that 
the  gods  are  born  as  they  are,  and  have  perception  like 
theirs,  and  voice  and  form."  "  Yes,  and  if  oxen  and  lions 
had  hands,  and  could  paint  with  their  hands  and  produce 
works  of  art  as  men  do,  horses  would  paint  the  forms  of 
the  gods  like  horses,  and  oxen  like  oxen.  Each  would 
represent  them  with  bodies  according  to  the  form  of  each." 
"  So  the  Ethiopians  make  their  gods  black  and  snub-nosed ; 
the  Thracians  give  theirs  red  hair  and  blue  eyes."  Let  us 
rid  ourselves,  then,  of  the  paltry  notion  of  a  multitude  of 
gods  made  after  the  likeness  of  man,  and  subject  to  the 
same  ignoble  passions :  "  There  is  One  God,  the  greatest 
among  gods  and  men,  comparable  to  mortals  neither  in 
form  nor  thought."  This  is  evidently  not  a  statement  of 
monotheism,  in  the  ordinary  religious  sense,  for  the  One 
God  of  Xenophanes  is  expressly  said  to  exclude  all  anthro- 
pomorphic elements.  Besides,  he  is  declared  to  be  '  great- 
est among  gods,'  so  that  other  gods  seem  also  to  have  a 


22  A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

certain  reality.  What  Xenophanes  is  trying  to  assert  is,  not 
that  the  reality  of  the  universe  is  God,  as  the  religionist 
uses  the  term,  but,  rather,  that  what  we  name  God  is  the 
one  immutable  and  comprehensive  material  universe,  which 
holds  within  it  and  determines  all  those  minor  phenom- 
ena, to  which  an  enlightened  philosophy  will  reduce  the 
many  deities  of  the  popular  faith.  The  conception  is  not 
unlike  that  of  Spinoza  in  later  times :  God  is  the  world  of 
nature,  regarded  as  absolutely  one,  eternal  and  unchanging. 
2.  This  conception  of  the  identity  and  permanence  of 
reality,  which  with  Xenophanes  was  largely  the  result  of  a 
poetic  insight,  becomes,  with  Parmenides  of  Elea  (about 
470  B.C.),  a  clearly  defined  philosophical  doctrine,  with 
important  consequences.  Of  all  philosophical  systems, 
that  of  Parmenides  is,  perhaps,  the  most  paradoxical.  It 
is  based  on  the  absolute  denial  of  change  and  multiplicity 
in  the  world,  and  their  reduction  to  pure  illusion.  Only 
the  One  exists,  and  that  One  is  eternal,  immutable,  immov- 
able, indivisible.  Now  the  practical  refutation  of  this, 
by  facts,  is  perfectly  easy ;  it  does  not  describe  the 
world  as  we  actually  know  it,  and  if  the  world  really  were 
such  a  world,  then  all  philosophies,  and  their  reasonings 
about  Being,  would  immediately  be  wiped  out,  along  with 
everything  else  that  is  partial.  The  illusions  which  philosophy 
attempts  to  correct  would  be  impossible,  even  as  illusions. 
Parmenides'  philosophy,  however,  does  not  pretend  to  be 
based  upon  facts ;  it  declares  that  facts  themselves  must 
be  subjected  to  the  laws  of  thought,  or  logic,  and,  if  they 
prove  to  be  self-contradictory,  must  be  rejected.  If  we  can- 
not think  them,  we  have  no  right  to  say  that  they  are  facts. 
Now,  to  Parmenides  the  idea  of  change  is  unthinkable. 
That  a  thing  should  arise  out  of  that  which  is  different 
from  itself,  seems  to  him  a  contradiction.  Even  that  form 
of  change  which  apparently  is  most  simple  —  change  in 
place,  or  motion,  Parmenides  declares  is  inherently  impos- 
sible. Motion  implies  the  validity  of  a  certain  concept 
—  the  concept  of  empty  space,  within  which  the  move- 


Greek  Philosophy  23 

ments  may  take  place.  But  is  empty  space  thinkable  ?  Is 
it  not  mere  emptiness,  mere  absence  of  being  —  Not-being, 
in  a  word  ?  And  so  long  as  thought  is  true  to  itself,  can 
any  effort  make  the  being  of  Not-being  intelligible  ?  And 
if  it  is  not  intelligible,  if  it  is  incapable  of  being  thought,  it 
does  not  exist.  Only  Being  exists  ;  and  since  Being  is  still 
thought  of  as  identical  with  body,  the  absence  of  Being,  or 
empty  space,  has  no  reality.  Hence  Being  is  a  solid  block, 
immovable  and  unchanged.  "  Being  cannot  be  divisible, 
since  it  is  all  alike,  and  there  is  no  more  of  it  in  one  place 
than  in  another  to  hinder  it  from  holding  together,  nor  less 
of  it,  but  everything  is  full  of  what  is."  There  can  be  no 
break  between  its  parts ;  if  such  a  break  is  real,  it  is  itself 
Being,  or  body  ;  and  so  body  is  continuous  after  all.  It  is 
without  motion  ;  for  it  could  only  move  in  space,  and  space 
either  is  or  is  not.  If  space  is,  it  is  Being,  and  Being 
moves  in  Being,  which  is  equivalent  to  saying  it  is  at  rest. 
If  space  is  nothing,  it  does  not  exist,  and  so  nothing  can 
move  in  it.  If  sense  perception  tells  us  the  contrary,  then 
the  testimony  of  the  senses  must  be  rejected. 

3.  The  paradoxical  arguments  of  Parmenides,  appear- 
ing as  they  did  at  a  time  when  the  human  mind  was  first  be- 
ginning to  taste  the  delights  of  metaphysical  inquiry,  had  an 
immense  influence.  Among  his  adherents,  the  best  known 
were  Melissus  of  Samos,  a  politician  and  general  who  gained 
a  victory  over  Athens  in  442  B.C.,  and  Zeno  of  Elea  (about 
490-430  B.C.).  Zeno  undertook  to  strengthen  his  master's 
position  by  showing,  on  the  negative  side,  that  the  diffi- 
culties which  it  involves  in  the  eyes  of  common  sense,  are 
matched  by  difficulties  quite  as  great  in  the  views  of  those 
who  assert  the  reality  of  change  and  motion.  Of  his  argu- 
ments, which  became  famous,  it  will  be  enough  to  mention 
the  two  which  are  known,  respectively,  as  the  flying  arrow, 
and  Achilles  and  the  tortoise.  In  order  that  an  arrow  fly- 
ing through  space  should  reach  its  destination,  it  must  suc- 
cessively occupy  a  series  of  positions.  But  at  any  moment 
we  may  choose,  it  is  in  a  particular  place,  and  therefore  is 


24          A  Students  History  of  Philosophy 

at  rest ;  and  as  no  summing  up  of  states  of  rest  can  result 
in  motion,  it  can  never  move.  The  other  argument  involves 
the  relation  of  two  different  motions.  Achilles  never  can 
overtake  the  tortoise,  because,  while  he  is  reaching  what  at 
any  moment  is  the  starting-point  of  the  tortoise,  the  latter 
will  have  gained  a  certain  amount  of  ground  ;  and  as 
Achilles  always  must  reach  first  the  position  previously 
occupied  by  his  competitor,  the  tortoise  will  forever  keep 
just  a  little  ahead. 

Of  course  the  character  of  the  Eleatic  conclusions  ren- 
dered it  impossible  that  they  ever  should  produce  any  great 
advance  in  substantial  knowledge ;  and  in  Gorgias  of  Leon- 
tinum  (483-375),  whom  we  shall  meet  again  as  a  Sophist, 
the  same  style  of  reasoning  that  had  proved  so  destructive 
was  turned  against  the  Eleatic  doctrine  itself,  and  made  to 
•prove  the  non-existence  of  Being  as  well.  Indirectly,  how- 
ever, this  later  development  of  the  Eleatic  doctrine  had 
certain  valuable  results.  The  polemical  interests  of  Zeno 
and  his  associates  caused  them  to  direct  a  good  deal  of  at- 
tention to  the  processes  of  argument  and  refutation  ;  and  in 
this  way  a  beginning  was  made  of  what  afterward  was  to 
be  one  of  the  special  divisions  of  philosophy,  namely,  Logic. 

§  6.    The  Mediators.  Empcdocles.  Anaxagoras.   Leucippus 
and  Democritus 

i.  Empedocles,  the  first  to  be  mentioned  of  the  more 
independent  successors  of  Parmenides,  was  a  native  of 
Sicily  (490-430  B.C.),  and  a  man  of  note  and  political 
influence.  He  sided  with  the  popular  party,  and  was 
offered  the  leadership  of  his  city,  but  refused  the  honor, 
perhaps  from  a  just  estimate  of  the  value  to  be  placed 
upon  popular  favor.  His  extensive  knowledge,  and  his 
skill  in  medicine,  caused  him  to  be  regarded  as  the  pos- 
sessor of  supernatural  powers,  and  he  may  himself  have 
helped  to  foster  this  belief ;  according  to  tradition,  he  met 
his  death  by  throwing  himself  in  the  crater  of  Mt.  ./Etna, 


Greek  Philosophy  25 

that  the  mysteriousness  of  his  disappearance  might  give 
rise  to  the  belief  that  he  was  a  god.  A  mixture  of  char- 
latanism, with  what  is  essentially  a  true  scientific  spirit,  has 
not  been  uncommon  at  periods  when  new  possibilities  of 
knowledge  are  beginning  to  dawn  upon  men's  minds  ;  Par- 
acelsus is  a  more  modern  illustration.  At  such  times,  there 
seem  no  limits  to  what  science  can  hope  to  accomplish. 
"And  thou  shalt  leain,"  Empedocles  says  at  the  beginning 
of  his  great  philosophical  poem,  "all  the  drugs  thr.t  are  a 
defence  against  ills  and  old  age,  since  for  thee  alone  shall 
I  accomplish  all  this.  Thou  shalt  arrest  the  violence  of 
the  weariless  winds  that  arise  and  sweep  the  earth,  laying 
waste  the  cornfields  with  their  breath ;  and  again,  when 
thou  so  desirest,  thou  shalt  bring  their  blasts  back  again 
with  a  rush.  Thou  shalt  cause  for  men  a  seasonable 
drought  after  the  dark  rains,  and  again  after  the  summer 
drought  thou  shalt  produce  the  streams  that  feed  the  trees 
as  they  pour  down  from  the  sky.  Thou  shalt  bring  back 
from  Hades  the  life  of  a  dead  man."  If  science  has  not 
done  precisely  these  things,  it  has  actually  enabled  men  to 
perform  wonders  almost  as  great  in  the  way  of  controlling 
natural  forces.  It  is  only  the  desire  to  reach  these  results 
by  short  cuts,  and  the  failure  to  perceive  that  they  require 
a  long  process  of  patient  investigation,  that  turns  men's 
thoughts  in  the  direction  of  magical  and  occult  powers,  in 
the  manipulation  of  which  they  are  partly  self-deceived, 
in  part  conscious  deceivers. 

The  significance  of  Empedocles,  however,  depends  upon 
his  real  perception,  underlying  all  this,  of  the  value  and 
necessity  of  true  scientific  knowledge.  Man  is  by  nature 
weak,  ignorant,  and  self-deluded.  "  For  straitened  are  the 
powers  with  which  their  bodily  parts  are  endowed,  and 
many  are  the  woes  that  burst  in  on  them,  and  blunt  the 
edge  of  their  careful  thoughts.  They  behold  but  a  brief 
span  of  a  life  that  is  no  life,  and,  doomed  to  swift  death, 
are  borne  away  and  fly  off  like  smoke.  Each  is  convinced 
of  that  alone  which  he  has  chanced  upon  as  he  is  hurried 


26          A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

to  and  fro,  and  idly  fancies  he  has  found  the  whole.  So 
hardly  can  these  things  be  seen  by  the  eyes  or  heard  by 
the  ears  of  men,  so  hardly  grasped  by  their  mind ! " 
Man's  only  salvation,  his  only  road  to  freedom,  is  knowl- 
edge, or  science. 

"  Mind  is  the  spell  which  governs  earth  and  heaven  ; " 
and  in  his  own  philosophy,  Empedocles  thinks  that  he  has 
found  the  key  to  the  true  explanation  of  things. 

It  would  seem  that  Empedocles  had  known  the  reason- 
ings of  Parmenides,  and  been  strongly  impressed  by  them. 
But  he  could  not  rest  content  with  their  one-sidedness. 
Change  and  generation  undoubtedly  exist,  and  have  to  be 
explained.  Now,  even  if  Parmenides'  proof  of  the  non- 
existence  of  empty  space  be  allowed,  one  possibility  of 
motion  still  remains.  The  parts  of  this  solid  mass  might 
conceivably  change  their  position  with  reference  to  one 
another,  without  the  need  of  empty  space  between  them ; 
one  slipping  continuously  into  the  place  left  vacant  by  its 
neighbor,  just  as  to  the  ordinary  vision  the  parts  of  water 
seem  to  do.  There  would,  indeed,  be  no  gain  in  this,  if 
each  part  were  exactly  the  same  as  every  other.  But  if 
we  conceive  a  primitive  difference  in  the  nature  of  the 
parts,  then  their  shiftings  of  position  with  regard  to  one 
another  might  be  utilized  to  account  for  the  changing 
phenomena  of  the  sensible  world.  This  is  Empedocles' 
new  thought :  generation  is  merely  change  of  composition. 
"  There  is  no  coming  into  being  of  aught  that  perishes, 
nor  any  end  for  it  in  baneful  death,  but  only  mingling,  and 
separation  of  what  has  been  mingled."  "  When  the  elements 
have  been  mingled  in  the  fashion  of  a  man,  and  come  to 
the  light  of  day,  or  in  the  fashion  of  the  race  of  wild 
beasts  or  plants  or  birds,  then  men  say  that  these  come 
into  being ;  and  when  they  are  separated,  they  call  that,  as 
is  the  custom,  woful  death."  "Just  as  when  painters  are 
elaborating  temple  offerings,  men  whom  Metis  has  well 
taught  their  art,  —  they,  when  they  have  taken  pigments 
of  many  colors  with  their  hands,  mix  them  in  a  har- 


Greek  Philosophy  27 

mony,  more  of  some  and  less  of  others,  and  from  them 
produce  shapes  like  unto  all  things,  making  trees  and  men 
and  women,  beasts  and  birds  and  fishes  that  dwell  in  the 
waters,  yea,  and  gods  that  live  long  lives,  and  are  exalted 
in  honor,  —  so  let  not  the  error  prevail  over  thy  mind, 
that  there  is  any  other  source  of  all  the  perishable  crea- 
tures that  appear  in  countless  numbers." 

This,  accordingly,  marks  out  the  path  by  which  the  rec- 
onciliation of  change  and  permanence  was  to  be  attempted. 
If  reality  is  One,  as  Parmenides  had  assumed  in  common 
with  all  previous  philosophy,  then,  indeed,  his  arguments 
are  irrefragable,  and  the  world  of  generation  has  no  exist- 
ence. But  if  reality  is  Many,  and  not  One,  then  we  can 
account  for  both  factors ;  permanence  belongs  to  the  ele- 
ments in  themselves,  change  to  their  shifting  relations. 
So  by  setting  up  four  separate  elements, —  Earth,  Water,  Air, 
and  Fire,  —  Empedocles  thought  that  he  could  explain, 
through  their  varying  combinations,  all  the  apparent  differ- 
ences in  the  world  of  individual  objects,  which  Parmenides 
had  left  himself  no  way  of  accounting  for  even  as  illusion. 
It  was  not  until,  in  Plato,  the  idea  of  Being  had  been  freed 
from  its  materialistic  implications,  that  the  unity  of  reality 
could  be  reasserted  in  an  intelligible  way. 

In  another  direction,  also,  Parmenides'  influence  seems 
to  have  been  felt.  Heretofore  it  had  been  assumed  that 
matter  is  itself  alive,  and  that  it  possesses  in  its  own  na- 
ture the  principle  of  movement.  But  Parmenides,  by  his 
doctrine  of  the  absolute  immobility  of  Being,  had  detached 
the  quality  of  motion  from  the  conception  of  matter.  Em- 
pedocles, accordingly,  finds  it  necessary  to  have  recourse 
to  a  separate  principle,  in  order  to  get  bodies  to  moving 
again.  So  he  is  led  to  postulate,  in  addition  to  his  four 
elements,  two  other  agencies  to  manipulate  them.  He 
gives  to  these  agencies  the  names  of  Love  and  Hate. 
Love  acts  in  a  way  to  bring  about  a  complete  intermixture 
of  the  different  elements,  "  as  a  baker  cementing  barley 
meal  with  water."  Hate  breaks  up  this  intermixture,  and 


28  A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

brings  elements  of  the  same  kind  together.  The  history 
of  the  universe  is  thus  an  oscillation  to  .and  fro  between 
complete  discord,  and  complete  harmony.  It  is  difficult 
to  interpret  this  obscure  conception  of  Love  and  Hate  with 
any  great  precision.  In  modern  terms,  it  perhaps  stands 
most  nearly  for  what  we  should  name  the  forces  of  attrac- 
tion and  repulsion,  with  which,  however,  certain  elements 
of  the  ethical  and  rational  life  are  confusedly  intermingled. 
But  at  any  rate,  we  are  not  to  look  upon  these  forces  as 
strictly  immaterial.  Empedocles  is  still  unable  to  think  of 
anything  as  real  which  does  not  occupy  space;  and  so, 
when  he  tries  to  define  Love  and  Hate  more  closely,  he 
makes  them,  after  all,  as  material  as  his  other  elements. 

One  other  problem,  which  had  already  appeared  in  Her- 
acleitus,  receives  a  somewhat  fuller  treatment  at  the  hands 
of  Empedocles  —  the  problem  of  knowing.  We  can  know 
everything,  because  we  are  ourselves  compounded  of  every- 
thing. All  the  elements  enter  into  our  make-up  —  earth  to 
form  the  solid  parts,  water  the  liquid,  air  the  vital  breath, 
fire  the  soul.  We  perceive  any  particular  thing,  then, 
because  we  are  that  thing ;  like  is  known  by  like.  "  For  it 
is  with  earth  that  we  see  earth,  and  water  with  water ;  by 
air  we  see  bright  air,  by  fire  destroying  fire.  By  love  do 
we  see  love,  and  hate  by  grievous  hate."  In  its  materialis- 
tic form,  it  is  impossible  to  make  this  really  intelligible. 
Knowledge  is  not,  and  cannot  be,  a  spatial  and  material 
function.  In  the  thought,  however,  that  it  is  our  ultimate 
kinship  with  the  world  we  know,  which  makes  the  bond  of 
knowledge  possible,  there  is  the  germ  of  an  insight  which 
later  on  has  a  fruitful  development,  and  finally  breaks 
down  the  materialism  which  conditions  its  first  appearance. 

2.  With  the  name  of  Anaxagoms,  we  come  for  the  first 
time  into  connection  with  the  city  of  Athens.  Anaxagoras 
(500-429  B.C.)  was  a  native  of  Clazomenae  in  Ionia,  but 
about  the  middle  of  the  fifth  century  he  emigrated  to 
Athens.  There  for  a  number  of  years  he  was  one  of  the 
most  prominent  figures  in  the  brilliant  circle  which  raised 


Greek  Philosophy  29 

Athens  to  its  position  as  the  intellectual  centre  of  Greece. 
He  became  the  intimate  friend  of  Pericles,  the  leader  of  the 
new  movement,  and  of  such  men  as  Euripides,  Thucyd- 
ides,  and  Protagoras.  Popular  feeling,  however,  was 
aroused  by  the  naturalistic  and  sceptical  tendencies  which 
Pericles  and  his  friends  represented.  This  feeling,  accen- 
tuated by  the  growing  political  bitterness  between  the 
democracy,  and  the  aristocratic  few  within  whose  ranks 
alone  the  new  learning  was  affected,  chose  Anaxagoras  as 
a  victim.  His  natural  explanation  of  the  sun  as  a  red-hot 
stone  —  not,  therefore,  a  divine  being  —  was  made  the  pre- 
text for  an  accusation  of  impiety.  He  was  thrown  into 
prison,  and  forced  to  save  his  life  by  leaving  the  city. 

Empedocles  had  thought  that  by  the  admission  of  four 
distinct  elements,  the  infinite  variety  of  the  world  could  be 
explained.  He  does  not  seem,  however,  to  have  attempted 
seriously  the  difficult  task  of  showing  how  this  could  be  in 
detail.  And  it  appeared  to  Anaxagoras  that  the  task  was 
impossible.  How  one  substance  can  change  into  another, 
how,  i.e.,  there  can  be  a  change  of  quality,  it  is  impossible 
to  conceive  ;  all  that  we  can  understand  is  change  in  position. 
Since,  therefore,  the  qualities  revealed  in  the  world  are  in- 
finite in  number,  we  cannot  stop  short  with  four  elements, 
but  must  postulate  an  unlimited  multitude  of  them,  as 
many  as  there  are  distinct  qualities.  This  may  be  called  a 
qualitative  atomism,  as  distinguished  from  the  quantitative 
atomism  to  be  mentioned  presently.  Reality  consists  of  a 
countless  number  of  "  things,"  or  qualitatively  simple  ele- 
ments, representing  every  distinguishable  aspect  of  the 
world.  These  elements  are  infinitely  divisible,  and  are 
everywhere  diffused  in  the  universe ;  so  that  in  each  indi- 
vidual particle  of  matter  all  elements  whatsoever  are  rep- 
resented,—  everything  is  in  everything  else,  —  and  objects 
are  not  separated  strictly,  or  "cut  off  from  one  another 
with  a  hatchet."  Nevertheless,  the  varying  proportions  in 
which  the  elements  appear,  and  the  fact  that  in  any  par- 
ticular object  some  of  them  are  present  in  such  infinites!- 


30          A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

mal  quantities  as  to  be  unrecognizable,  render  possible  the 
apparent  differences  that  meet  the  eye.  The  only  change 
is  change  of  spatial  position,  by  which  the  qualities  are 
intermingled  in  varying  proportions. 

Along  with  this  atomistic  hypothesis,  Anaxagoras  is 
celebrated  in  antiquity  as  the  originator  of  another  concep- 
tion, which  was  to  play  a  very  important  part  in  the  devel- 
opment of  philosophy.  Parmenides'  arguments,  which 
resulted  in  stripping  matter  of  every  principle  of  change 
or  motion,  had  left  Anaxagoras,  as  it  had  left  Empedocles, 
in  a  position  where  he  needed  some  outside  source  of  move- 
ment. Now  Anaxagoras  was  impressed  by  the  fact  that 
the  movement  of  the  elements  has  not  taken  place  in  a 
purely  haphazard  way,  but  has  given  birth  to  an  ordered 
and  harmonious  world.  In  the  motions  of  the  heavenly 
bodies,  in  particular,  there  had  long  been  recognized  an 
inner  law  and  rhythm.  This  had  brought  about,  indeed, 
the  rise  of  science ;  and  to  the  harmony-loving  mind  of  the 
Greek  it  was  especially  impressive.  But  law  and  order  is, 
to  unsophisticated  thought  at  any  rate,  a  product  of  intelli- 
gence ;  and  when  it  is  considered,  further,  that  only  things 
possessing  life  or  consciousness  have  the  power  of  self- 
movement,  it  will  not  appear  strange  that  Anaxagoras 
should  have  been  led  to  identify  the  moving  and  ordering 
principle  of  the  universe  with  intelligent  Mind.  In  this 
way  a  dualism  was  set  up.  On  the  one  hand  are  the  ele- 
ments, entirely  inert;  while  over  against  them  stands  Nous, 
or  Reason,  which  alone  is  self-moved,  and  which  is  the 
cause  of  motion  in  everything  else. 

This  is  the  first  conscious  separation  of  the  rational 
life  of  mind,  under  its  own  proper  name,  from  its  en- 
tanglement with  the  rest  of  the  universe ;  and  as  such, 
it  marks  an  important  step.  It  gives  an  intimation  of 
that  view  of  the  world  which  subordinates  material  pro- 
cesses to  a  conscious  rational  purpose,  and  which,  under 
the  name  of  teleology,  has  ever  since  been  contesting 
with  the  mechanical  theories  of  science  the  right  to  the 


Greek  Philosophy  31 

supreme  place  in  the  interpretation  of  the  universe.  With 
Anaxagoras,  indeed,  the  conception  still  remains  confused 
and  obscure.  In  spite  of  his  separation  of  reason  from 
the  material  elements,  Anaxagoras  cannot  get  clear  of  the 
limitations  of  his  predecessors  ;  and  when  he  comes  to  a 
description  of  the  Nous,  it  still  retains  among  its  rational  and 
ideal  qualities  others  that  we  should  have  to  call  material. 
So,  too,  he  fails  to  put  his  principle  to  any  practical  use  in 
explaining  natural  phenomena ;  it  serves  only  to  give  the 
initial  fillip  which  sets  the  elements  in  motion.  Socrates, 
in  one  of  the  Platonic  dialogues,  tells  of  the  disappointment 
he  met  when  he  came  to  the  study  of  Anaxagoras'  system. 
He  had  been  told  that  here  everything  was  accounted  for 
by  Mind.  Accordingly,  he  had  expected  to  have  the  pur- 
pose of  things  pointed  out  to  him  — the  reason  for  the 
earth's  shape,  e.g.,  or  the  motions  of  the  planets,  explained 
by  reference  to  the  end  they  serve.  And  instead  of  this, 
he  found  Anaxagoras  having  recourse  to  just  the  same  ele- 
ments of  air  and  earth  and  water,  in  mechanical  interaction, 
which  were  to  be  met  with  in  other  philosophers.  What- 
ever we  may  think  of  Anaxagoras'  consistency,  however,  it 
was  a  significant  thing  merely  to  have  asserted  the  suprem- 
acy of  Reason  in  the  universe.  It  was  left  for  others  to 
point  out  more  clearly  what  the  assertion  meant. 

3.  Meanwhile  atomism  took  a  different,  and  what  was 
afterward  to  prove  a  more  fruitful  direction,  in  Leucippus, 
and  in  his  greater  pupil,  Democntns  of  Abdera.  Leucippus 
denied  the  differences  in  quality  among  the  elements,  which 
Empedocles  and  Anaxagoras  had  supposed,  and  went  back 
to  the  Eleatic  conception  of  Being  as  mere  body,  stripped 
of  all  qualitative  characteristics.  As  he  did  not  go  further, 
however,  and  give  up  the  reality  of  change,  he  had  to  have 
some  explanation  of  the  apparent  qualitative  facts  which 
make  up  the  phenomenal  world  ;  and  the  only  agency 
open  to  produce  them  was  change  in  spatial  position.  But 
this  made  it  necessary  to  admit  what  the  Eleatics  denied 
—  the  real  existence  of  Not-being,  or  empty  space.  Ac- 


32          A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

cordingly,  the  solid  lump  of  existence,  which  for  Parmen- 
ides  had  constituted  reality,  was  broken  up  into  an  infinite 
multitude  of  reproductions  of  itself  in  miniature,  or  atoms. 
These  atoms,  too  infinitesimal  to  be  visible  to  the  eye,  and 
differing  from  one  another  only  in  shape  and  size,  are 
eternal  and  unalterable,  and  possess,  indeed,  individually, 
the  characteristics  of  Parmenides'  Being,  except  its  im- 
mobility. They,  and  their  changing  relations,  alone  are 
real ;  all  else  is  appearance,  which  is  explained  ultimately 
by  these  real  movements  in  space. 

In  Leucippus,  we  have  the  first  clear  statement  of  phil- 
osophical materialism  —  the  reduction  of  true  reality  to 
what  afterward  came  to  be  known  as  the  primary  qualities 
of  body.  This  proved  to  be  a  point  of  view  of  the  greatest 
value  for  scientific  thought ;  by  its  reduction  of  qualitative 
to  quantitative  differences,  it  opened  the  way  for  the 
mathematical  treatment  of  phenomena,  which  belongs  to 
scientific  method.  The  same  result  flows  from  its  rejec- 
tion of  teleology  and  final  causes,  in  favor  of  a  mechanical 
explanation.  Since  all  reality  alike  is  qualitatively  indif- 
ferent, there  is  no  room  for  a  special  kind  of  existence 
which  shall  impart  motion  and  direction  to  the  rest; 
motion,  therefore,  has  to  be  restored  to  each  atom  as  its 
original  possession.  And  as  thus  all  the  data  necessary 
for  understanding  the  world  are  immanent  in  the  notion 
of  matter  itself,  it  is  not  necessary  to  appeal  to  purpose, 
or  intelligence,  or  to  anything  except  the  necessary  laws  of 
mechanical  interaction.  Mind,  or  soul,  is  no  exception 
to  the  rule  ;  it  is  composed  of  the  fire  atoms,  which  are  the 
finest  and  most  active  of  all.  These  soul  atoms  exist 
everywhere ;  but  they  are  only  endowed  with  sensation 
when  they  come  together  in  certain  quantities,  as  they  do 
in  the  human  body.  Consciousness,  therefore,  disappears 
with  the  dissolution  of  the  body. 

The  scientific  elaboration  of  this  standpoint  at  the 
hands  of  Democritus  (about  460-360  B.C.),  was  one  of  the 
great  philosophical  achievements  of  antiquity.  Democritus 


Greek  Philosophy  33 

is  to  be  classed,  indeed,  not  with  the  earlier  philosophers, 
but  rather  with  Plato  and  Aristotle,  whose  older  contem- 
porary he  was,  and  whom  he  rivals  in  the  comprehensive- 
ness of  his  system.  In  particular,  he  goes  beyond  his 
predecessors  by  the  more  elaborate  treatment  which  he  gives 
to  thephilosophical  doctrineof  knowledge.  Hiswholetheory 
compels  him  to  insist  upon  a  difference  between  our  ordi- 
nary perception,  which  gives  us  the  unreal  appearance  of 
things  as  qualitatively  distinct,  and  thought,  which  discloses 
their  true  atomic  structure  ;  and  it  only  is  in  thought  terms 
that  science  deals.  On  the  other  hand,  his  materialism 
forces  him  to  explain  knowledge  in  terms  of  contact,  and 
so  to  reduce  it  ultimately  to  the  form  of  touch.  He  does 
this  through  the  theory  of  effluxes,  or  images,  a  theory 
which  remained  influential  even  down  to  the  time  of 
Locke.  External  objects  shed  minute  copies  or  images 
of  themselves.  These  enter  the  sense  organs  which  are 
fitted  to  receive  them,  and,  by  setting  in  motion  the  soul 
atoms,  give  rise  to  perception.  How,  then,  does  false 
knowledge  differ  from  true,  sensation  from  thought  ? 
This  question,  which  the  earlier  philosophers  had  been 
unable  to  answer,  Democritus  seems  to  have  solved  with- 
out admitting  any  difference  in  kind  between  them. 
Thought  is  caused  by  those  finer  images  which  copy  the 
atomic  structure  of  things,  and  which,  as  they  give  rise  to 
a  gentler  motion  of  the  soul,  are  able  to  affect  us  only  as 
more  violent  disturbances  are  prevented.  Sensation,  on 
the  contrary,  being  due  to  the  larger  and  coarser  images, 
which  aggregates  of  atoms  give  off,  throws  the  soul  into 
the  violent  commotion  which  results  only  in  confused  per- 
ceptions, i.e.,  in  subjective  and  phenomenal  appearance. 

§  7.    The  Pythagoreans 

i.  At  the  same  time  with  the  development  which  has  just 
been  traced,  another  interconnected  movement  was  gain- 
ing numerous  adherents.  The  originator  of  this  movement 
is  the  semi-mythical  figure  of  Pythagoras,  a  native  of 


34          A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

Samos,  who  lived  about  580-500  B.C.,  and  who,  after  many 
travels,  finally  settled  down  at  Crotona  in  Italy.  The 
facts  about  Pythagoras  are  not  easy  to  discover,  but  it  is 
apparent  that,  besides  being  a  philosopher,  he  had  also 
certain  practical  aims.  He  was  the  founder  of  a  religious 
society,  in  which  more  or  less  ascetic  ethical  and  social 
ideals  appear  to  have  been  at  least  as  important  as  scien- 
tific doctrines.  The  school  was  a  brotherhood,  bound 
together  by  common  beliefs  and  rules,  and  common  intel- 
lectual pursuits.  Some  of  the  rules  of  the  order  have 
come  down  to  us,  and  they  throw  an  interesting  light  on 
its  character.  Apart  from  the  injunction  of  celibacy  and 
ascetic  practices,  of  meditations,  devotions,  and  the  social 
virtues,  there  are  other  requirements  of  a  more  ambig- 
uous nature.  Do  not  sit  on  a  quart  measure ;  do  not  eat 
the  heart ;  do  not  stir  the  fire  with  iron ;  do  not  look  in  a 
mirror  beside  a  light ;  when  you  rise  from  the  bedclothes, 
roll  them  together  and  smooth  out  the  impress  of  the 
body :  these  are  a  few  that  are  sufficiently  characteristic. 
So,  also,  the  prohibition  of  animal  sacrifices,  of  the  use  of 
.wool,  of  the  eating  of  beans.  Most  of  these  rules  seem 
so  trivial,  that  the  later  Pythagoreans  were  driven  to  inter- 
pret them  metaphorically,  and  to  find  in  them  all  sorts  of 
hidden  wisdom.  But  anthropology  throws  a  different 
light  upon  them,  and  makes  it  plain  that  they  are  simply 
survivals  of  primitive  savagery,  based  on  the  notion  of 
taboo,  and  similar  customs  and  superstitions.  They  seem 
to  have  appealed  to  Pythagoras  as  a  suitable  instrument 
for  bringing  about  a  reform  of  the  widespread  luxury  and 
license  which  marked  the  age,  and  which  have  made  the 
neighboring  city  of  Sybaris  a  byword  for  self-indulgence. 
There  are  other  indications  that  a  wave  of  religious  revival 
had  been  passing  over  Greece,  marked  by  a  deepened 
sense  of  guilt,  and  of  the  need  of  expiation.  Such  a 
revival  always  tends  to  turn  back  to  the  authority  of 
ancient  customs,  with  which  the  religious  feeling  is  deeply 
implicated,  particularly  on  its  more  gloomy  side.  This 


Greek  Philosophy  25 

sense  of  guilt  shows  itself  in  the  doctrine  of  the  trans- 
migration of  souls,  which  plays  a  large  part  in  the  Pythag- 
orean teaching,  and  which  has  its  chief  attraction  in  its 
emphasis  on  the  fact  of  moral  retribution.  The  rapid 
growth  of  the  new  society,  its  inner  coherence,  and  its 
possession  of  scientific  knowledge,  soon  gave  it  a  pre- 
ponderating political  influence  in  Crotona,  and  other  Ital- 
ian cities.  Its  exclusiveness,  however,  and  its  rather 
supercilious  and  self-righteous  attitude,  gave  strength  to 
its  opponents,  and  finally  resulted  in  its  overthrow  at  the 
hands  of  the  popular  party. 

2.  Deprived  of  political  power,  the  movement  continued 
to  exert  a  more  permanent  influence  through  the  medium 
of  those  philosophical  and  scientific  aspects  which  probably 
had  been  present  to  some  extent  from  the  start.  The  doc- 
trine of  the  Pythagoreans  is  summed  up  in  the  statement 
that  the  reality  of  things  consists  in  number.  If  we  take 
number  in  the  modern  sense,  as  distinguished  from  the 
concrete  objects  to  which  it  applies,  this  is  too  abstract  a 
conception  to  mean  anything,  even  to  us ;  and  it  certainly 
would  not  have  been  intelligible  at  so  early  a  period.  It 
is  necessary  to  interpret  it,  therefore,  if  it  is  to  be  made 
consistent  with  the  rest  that  is  known  of  Greek  thought ; 
and  the  most  probable  interpretation  seems,  briefly,  to  be 
this  :  It  is  the  common  presupposition  of  the  Greek  type 
of  mind,  that  the  real  is  the  definite.  It  is  only  as  Chaos 
takes  on  ordered  and  harmonious  form,  that  we  have  any- 
thing deserving  to  be  called  a  world.  But  if  existence  is 
spatial  and  material,  then  such  regularity  is  most  obvi- 
ously to  be  found  in  the  geometrical  forms  to  which  space 
lends  itself.  With  the  Pythagoreans,  this  takes  shape  in  the 
doctrine  that  the  Cosmos  is  the  result  of  bringing  together 
two  factors  —  the  Unlimited,  or  infinite  and  formless  empty 
space,  and  the  Limit  which  is  given  to  this.  The  result  is 
the  world  of  definite  forms,  which  partake  of  the  character- 
istics of  both.  They  are  spatial  in  their  nature,  but  it  is 
limited  space.  It  was  with  this  ascending  series  of  geomet- 


36          A  Students  History  of  Philosophy 

rical  forms  —  regarded,  however,  not  as  abstractions,  but  as 
concrete  physical  facts  —  that  the  number  series  seems  to 
have  been  identified,  and  so  to  have  got  its  entrance  into  the 
theory.  Thus,  the  number  one  is  the  point,  two  the  line, 
three  the  surface,  four  the  cube,  and  so  on.  The  interest 
of  the  Pythagoreans  in  musical  theory,  and  their  discovery 
of  the  numerical  relations  of  the  length  of  the  strings,  may 
have  helped  to  emphasize  this  identification. 

Of  course,  the  actual  scientific  results  which  they  had  to 
show  from  their  investigations,  were  scanty.  The  inquiries 
just  mentioned,  concerning  the  numerical  relations  involved 
in  musical  harmony,  had  some  value ;  but  the  extension  of 
the  same  idea  to  phenomena  on  a  larger  or  a  different  scale 
—  for  example,  their  fancy  about  the  "  music  of  the  spheres," 
and  their  theory  that  the  soul  is  merely  the  harmony  of  the 
body,  as  a  melody  is  the  harmony  of  the  lyre  —  led  them 
into  the  realm  of  pure  guesswork,  or  poetic  imagination. 
For  the  most  part,  their  procedure  consisted  in  attempting 
to  discover,  through  the  use  of  more  or  less  fanciful  analo- 
gies, a  special  number  for  every  sort  of  existence.  Thus, 
opportunity  is  represented  by  the  number  seven ;  marriage 
by  the  number  five  —  the  first  harmony  between  the  male 
(odd)  and  the  female  (even).  The  triviality  of  these  results 
should  not  lead  us,  however,  to  ignore  the  real  value  of 
their  fundamental  thought.  The  recognition  that  the  aim 
of  scientific  inquiry  is  the  discovery  of  numerical  relation- 
ships, was  destined,  under  more  favorable  conditions,  to 
be  taken  up  again,  and,  in  connection  with  the  atom- 
ism of  Democritus,  to  be  made  the  basis  of  all  modern 
science. 

LITERATURE 

Burnet,  Early  Greek  Philosophers. 

Blackie,  Horae  Hellenicae,  p.  255. 

Grote,  History  of  Greece. 

Fairbanks,  The  First  Philosophers  of  Greece. 

Symonds,  Greek  Poets,  Vol.  I. 

Zeller,  The  Pre-Socratic  Schools,  2  vols. 


THE  GREEK  ENLIGHTENMENT.  TRANSITION 
TO  THE  STUDY  OF  MAN 

§  8.   The  Sophists 

i.  The  Growth  of  Critical  Inquiry.  —  So  far,  the 
powers  of  the  Greek  mind  have  been  directed  chiefly  to 
the  theoretical  solution  of  the  objective,  cosmological 
problems  that  are  connected  with  processes  in  nature. 
And  along  this  line  the  results  have  been  somewhat  re- 
markable. In  the  space  of  a  few  generations,  a  concep- 
tion has  been  elaborated  which  is  strikingly  similar  to  what 
has  been,  up  to  within  a  short  time  at  least,  the  hypothesis 
of  the  most  modern  science.  The  reduction  of  qualitative 
to  quantitative  differences,  the  connection  of  mathematics 
with  scientific  method,  the  resolution  of  all  phenomenal 
bodies  into  a  multitude  of  minute  moving  particles,  or 
atoms,  of  all  change  into  change  of  position  on  the  part 
of  these  atoms,  and  all  efficiency  into  mechanical  impact, 
is  expressed  with  a  defmiteness  that  leaves  little  to  be  de- 
sired. Nevertheless,  this  development  now  stops  abruptly, 
and  for  nearly  two  thousand  years  the  course  of  human 
thought  takes,  in  its  dominant  aspects,  an  altogether  dif- 
ferent line.  How  does  Greek  atomism  differ  from  modern 
science,  that  the  one  should  be  so  barren,  and  the  other 
so  rich  in  results  ? 

Evidently  the  most  far-reaching  difference  consists  sim- 
ply in  this  :  that  modern  science  is  no  mere  guess  at  the 
ultimate  nature  of  things  in  general,  but  an  experimental 
investigation  of  the  way  in  which  things  really  act  in  de- 
tail. It  is  this  which  gives  it  its  immense  influence  on 
modern  life.  To  know  the  actual  laws  of  things  is  to  con- 

37 


38          A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

trol  them ;  and  this  practical  service  which  it  renders,  is 
what  has  made  of  science  one  of  the  most  powerful  instru- 
ments of  growth  in  civilization  that  has  ever  been  devised. 
The  Greeks,  on  the  contrary,  had  not  reached  the  point 
where  they  could  master  the  concrete  behavior  of  objects. 
Their  atomism  is  less  a  science  than  a  mere  philosophy,  in 
which  the  chief  interest  is  the  theoretical  one  of  reducing 
all  the  complexity  of  life  to  a  single  formula.  And  as  such, 
it  has  no  great  contribution  to  make  to  the  concrete  human 
ends,  out  of  which  the  larger  movements  of  human  thought 
always  flow.  It  is  not  far  enough  advanced  to  touch  human 
life  on  the  practical  side,  like  modern  science ;  and  in  rela- 
tion to  the  more  spiritual  interests  of  man,  it  is  plainly 
inadequate.  The  mechanical  view  of  the  world  tries  to  re- 
duce things  to  a  statement  which  ignores  all  reference  to 
the  facts  of  conscious  life,  of  spiritual  value,  of  aesthetic, 
and  ethical,  and  social  ideals.  And  because  it  is  such  an 
abstraction,  it  has  no  real  interpretation  to  give  of  the  as- 
pects which  it  leaves  out.  But  philosophy  cannot  long 
ignore  what  interests  men  most;  and  as  the  physical 
theories  of  the  early  period  had  thus  no  great  contribution 
to  make  to  the  good  of  human  life,  it  was  natural  that 
they  should  be  laid  aside  for  the  time  being,  and  attention 
directed  to  the  more  concrete  facts  of  individual  and  social 
conduct,  i.e.,  to  Ethics.  It  was  only  when  this  more  press- 
ing problem  had  to  some  extent  been  worked  out  and 
formulated,  that  philosophy  was  able  to  come  back  with 
profit  to  the  mechanical  and  physical  aspects  of  the  uni- 
verse. 

Meanwhile,  in  a  negative  way,  the  theories  of  the  phys- 
ical philosophers  had  helped  prepare  for  this  subsequent 
movement — a  movement  which  represents  most  characteris- 
tically the  genius  of  Greek  thought,  and  of  which  the 
Sophists  were  the  immediate  precursors.  At  first,  philoso< 
phy  had  directed  its  criticism  only  against  such  ideas  as 
were  primarily  theoretical  in  their  nature,  and  had  left  com- 
paratively untouched  the  realm  of  conduct.  Any  real 


Greek  Philosophy  39 

tampering  with  the  foundations  of  social  life  would,  indeed, 
at  the  start  have  been  vigorously  resented.  A  society 
which  is  still  based  upon  the  morality  of  custom  and  tradi- 
tion, cannot  afford  to  allow  too  free  an  examination  of  its 
foundation  and  sanctions,  if  it  does  not  wish  to  disinte- 
grate. Indirectly,  however,  philosophy  had  served  seri- 
ously to  weaken  these  sanctions.  Morality  and  the  social 
life  always  stand  for  the  mass  of  men  in  close  connection 
with  religious  ideas  and  practices,  and  this  is  particularly 
true  of  early  society,  where  religion  is  still  intimately  bound 
up  with  every  detail  of  life.  The  physical  philosophy  had 
thoroughly  shaken  the  hold  of  the  popular  religion  for  a 
multitude  of  educated  men.  The  stories  of  the  gods,  offen- 
sive alike  to  the  scientific  and  to  the  moral  sense,  were 
rationalized  and  explained  away;  and  while  philosophers 
might  not  go  to  the  length  of  denying  outright  the  gods' 
existence,  —  even  the  materialist  Democritus  supposed  that 
the  interplay  of  atoms  had  given  rise  to  beings,  not  immor- 
tal indeed,  but  far  more  perfect  than  ourselves,  whom  we 
call  gods,  —  still  the  clearly  defined  conceptions  of  the 
past  were  all  the  time  being  attenuated  into  a  vague 
naturalistic  pantheism,  which  lost  all  grip  on  the  concrete 
conduct  of  life.  The  growth  of  naturalism,  and  the  decay 
of  an  active  belief  in  the  old  mythology,  shows  itself  plainly, 
e.g.,  in  the  Greek  historians.  Instead  of  the  Homeric  gods, 
who  concern  themselves  with  the  smallest  details  of  human 
life,  and  are  called  in  to  explain  even  that  which  obviously 
needs  no  explanation,  there  is  already  in  Herodotus  a  fair 
development  of  the  historical  spirit,  which  tries  to  get  at 
true  causes,  and  which  stops  to  weigh  the  evidence  even 
in  the  case  of  stories  that  are  sacred.  In  spite  of  a  good 
deal  of  native  piety,  Herodotus  is  glad  to  rationalize  when 
he  sees  his  way  to  it.  So,  e.g.,  he  explains  the  legend  of 
the  rape  of  Europa,  as  perhaps  growing  out  of  what  was 
historically  a  capture  by  pirates.  And  when  we  reach 
Thucydides,  we  have  a  thoroughly  modern  historian,  whose 
narrative  has  become  purely  secular,  and  who  has  nothing 


40          A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

to  do  with  anything  except  human  and  natural  motives. 
When,  therefore,  the  ideas  of  conduct  came  themselves  in 
turn  to  be  criticised,  they  had  already  lost  a  large  measure 
of  their  sacredness  and  solidity. 

There  had  already  been  a  certain  amount  of  ethical 
reflection  among  the  Greeks.  The  writings  of  the  so- 
called  Seven  Wise  Men,  e.g.,  were  largely  moralistic.  The 
early  moralists,  indeed,  had  been  content  for  the  most  part 
with  the  enunciation  of  disconnected  ethical  and  prudential 
maxims  —  of  which  moderation  is  the  key-note  —  on  the 
basis  of  the  customary  morality ;  while  their  social  and 
political  applications  were  partisan,  rather  than  theoretical 
and  fundamental.  Nevertheless,  the  mere  fact  that  such 
a  literature  was  called  forth,  indicates  a  growing  unrest, 
and  a  feeling  of  the  insecurity  of  the  foundations  of  con- 
duct which  demanded  counteracting  forces.  In  particular, 
the  appearance  everywhere  in  the  Greek  cities  of  the 
Tyrant,  usually  a  vigorous  personality,  who,  from  the  role 
of  a  popular  hero,  ended  by  setting  up  his  private  will  as 
superior  to  the  whole  state,  had  impressed  a  stamp  of 
egoism  and  individualism  upon  the  age.  A  new  literary 
movement  gave  expression  to  this  individualism ;  it  was 
fostered  especially  at  the  courts  of  the  new  rulers,  and  its 
characteristic  was  the  personal  note  of  lyric  poetry.  The 
tendency  to  make  criticism  more  thoroughgoing,  was  par- 
tially checked  by  the  Persian  wars.  The  pressure  of  a 
national  crisis,  and  the  wave  of  moral  enthusiasm  called 
forth  by  the  heroic  way  in  which  it  was  met,  lent  a  new 
life  to  traditional  institutions  and  beliefs.  But  as  the  dan- 
ger passed,  and  Greece,  especially  Athens,  entered  upon 
a  career  of  prosperity  unknown  before,  the  tendencies 
already  present  in  the  Greek  life  became  more  and  more 
insistent. 

This  result  was  inevitable.  The  tacit  acquiescence  in 
the  status  quo,  the  unquestioning  acceptance  of  law  as 
divine  and  obligatory,  the  merging  of  one's  individual  life 
as  a  matter  of  course  in  the  community  and  civic  life,  and 


Greek  Philosophy  41 

the  recognition  of  the  superior  claims  of  the  latter,  could 
not  long  remain  unchallenged  under  the  conditions  which 
marked  Greek  political  life  during  the  fifth  century.  The 
constant  revolutions  and  changes  of  government  growing 
out  of  the  struggles  of  the  popular  party  with  the  aristoc- 
racy, and  the  wide  extension  of  democratic  principles,  made 
it  impossible  that  the  old  attitude  should  be  persevered 
in.  No  one  could  permanently  preserve  a  feeling  for  the 
divinity  and  inviolability  of  laws  which  were  changed  from 
year  to  year,  laws  which  he  had  seen  his  neighbors  tinker- 
ing at  in  the  popular  assembly,  under  the  influence  of 
prejudices  and  passions,  and  which  he  himself  had  had  a 
hand  in  constructing.  In  this  turmoil  of  social  conditions, 
when  the  old  ideals,  based  on  the  life  of  custom,  were 
slowly  yielding  to  new  circumstances,  it  could  not  fail  to 
come  about  that  there  should  be  an  effort  to  discover  the 
real  basis  of  social  life  as  such,  of  law,  and  justice,  and 
morality,  and  to  justify  at  the  bar  of  individual  reason  the 
institutions  which  hitherto  had  been  accepted  on  authority. 
It  is  the  sense  of  this  conflict  between  the  new  and  the  old, 
which  gives  rise  to  some  of  the  characteristic  problems  of 
the  drama.  The  old  tribal  conceptions  of  guilt  and  retribu- 
tion, comparatively  unmoralized  and  external,  are  being 
undermined  by  the  new  feeling  for  the  worth  of  the  in- 
dividual, and  the  need  that  his  acts  should  be  grounded  in 
his  personal  will  and  choice  to  become  ethically  signifi- 
cant. In  ^schylus  the  old  ideals  still  largely  maintain 
themselves ;  it  is  only  when  we  get  to  Euripides,  with 
his  pervasive  scepticism,  and  individualism,  and  modernity, 
that  we  realize  how  far  thought  has  advanced  from  its 
primitive  caution. 

2.  The  Sophists.  —  It  was  largely  the  class  of  men  known 
as  the  Sophists,  who  were  responsible  for  bringing  this 
change  of  attitude  to  clear  consciousness.  The  Sophists 
were  an  outgrowth  of  the  peculiar  political  conditions  of 
the  time.  For  the  young  man  of  good  birth,  who  had  to 
keep  up  the  role  of  "  gentleman,"  the  natural,  almost  the 


42  A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

only,  career  to  look  forward  to,  was  connected  with  the 
political  life  of  his  city.  Now  for  this,  the  most  obvious 
and  indispensable  qualification  was  the  ability  to  speak  well 
and  persuasively.  In  the  small  states  of  Greece,  where 
each  citizen  had  an  immediate  voice  in  determining  public 
policy,  political  preferment,  success  in  carrying  one's  meas- 
ures, and  even  self-preservation  against  the  attacks  of  op- 
ponents, depended  directly  on  one's  skill  in  carrying  his 
audience  with  him.  A  demand  arose,  accordingly,  for 
teachers  who  should  train  men  for  public  life ;  and  the 
Sophists  came  forward  to  meet  this  demand.  The  repre- 
sentatives of  the  higher  education  of  the  day,  they  made, 
like  the  modern  university  professor,  the  teaching  of  wis- 
dom a  profession.  As  there  were  no  settled  seats  of 
learning,  they  wandered  from  city  to  city,  picking  up  their 
pupils,  mostly  the  sons  of  rich  men,  wherever  they  could 
find  them,  and  supporting  themselves  by  the  fees  they  re- 
ceived. The  basis  of  their  work  was  apt  to  be  rhetorical, 
but  with  the  abler  Sophists,  this  was  broadened  out  to  cover 
the  field  of  an  all-round  and  liberal  culture.  Any  knowl- 
edge that  was  available  of  the  workings  of  the  human 
mind,  of  literature,  history,  language,  or  grammar,  of  the 
principles  underlying  the  dialectic  of  argument,  of  the 
nature  of  virtue  and  justice,  was  clearly  appropriate  to 
the  end  in  view.  And  so  in  the  case  of  the  greater  Soph- 
ists —  Protagoras,  Hippias,  Prodicus,  and  Gorgias  are  the 
names  best  known  to  us  —  we  meet  with  men  possessed  of 
a  varied,  in  some  cases  of  an  encyclopaedic,  learning,  and 
able  to  present  this  systematically  and  skilfully. 

Now  all  this  seems  to  be  innocent  enough,  and  to  supply 
no  justification  for  the  extreme  hostility  and  suspicion  with 
which  the  Sophists  were  regarded  by  the  populace,  and  by 
such  reactionary  upholders  of  tradition  as  Aristophanes. 
In  reality,  however,  ther^  were  some  grounds  for  this  sus- 
picion. On  the  practical  side,  merely,  there  always  was  a 
danger  lest  the  Sophistic  skill  be  prostituted  to  unsocial 
ends.  In  Aristophanes'  Clouds,  the  worthy  Strepsiades, 


Greek  Philosophy  43 

driven  to  his  wits'  end  by  the  debts  in  which  his  son  has 
involved  him,  is  represented  as  turning  to  the  Sophist  Soc- 
rates, for  the  means  to  extricate  himself  by  cheating  his 
creditors.  And  when,  after  he  proves  too  stupid  himself 
to  master  the  new  learning,  his  son  takes  his  place,  and 
ends  by  winning  his  suits  in  the  court,  the  latter  shows 
himself  a  proficient  disciple  by  ill-treating  his  own  father 
in  turn,  and  then  justifying  his  actions  in  true  Sophistic 
style.  Apart,  however,  from  such  chances  for  abuse, 
which  no  doubt  were  often  taken  advantage  of,  there  was 
a  more  fundamental  reason  for  the  popular  distrust.  The 
habit  of  unrestricted  inquiry  and  discussion  which  was  crys- 
tallized by  the  Sophistic  movement,  the  free  play  of  the 
mind  over  all  subjects  that  interest  men,  meant  the  over- 
throw of  much  in  the  existing  civilization.  But  men  do 
not  like  to  have  the  foundations  of  their  lives  shaken ;  and 
when  these  foundations  have  never  been  rationalized,  and 
have  no  better  warrant  than  unthinking  custom,  the  mere 
motion  to  examine  them  critically,  seems  to  be  risking  the 
solidity  of  the  whole  social  structure,  and  is  resented 
accordingly. 

Nor,  indeed,  was  there  very  much  in  the  thought  of  the 
Sophists  to  counteract  this  disintegrating  tendency.  In 
so  far  as  their  teaching  implied  a  criticism  of  existing 
things,  it  was  negative  in  its  effects.  Thought  had  not 
yet  been  exercised  sufficiently  to  discover  a  rational  stand- 
ard, to  take  the  place  of  the  standard  of  authoritative  tra- 
dition which  was  being  destroyed.  Just  the  admission 
that  each  man  has  the  right  to  test  the  truth  of  anything 
whatsoever,  by  referring  it  to  his  own  private  judgment, 
seems  at  first  to  do  away  with  the  possibility  of  an  abso- 
lute criterion,  and  to  resolve  society  into  a  mass  of  ele- 
mentary units,  each  recognizing  no  principle  of  authority 
outside  himself.  This  was  strengthened,  as  has  been  said, 
by  the  practical  aim  of  the  Sophistic  teaching.  The  goal 
of  the  politician  was  not  so  much  truth,  as  victory.  This 
made  it  necessary  that,  like  the  modern  lawyer,  he  should 


44          ^  Students  History  of  Philosophy 

be  nimble-witted  enough  to  take  any  side,  to  seize  any 
loophole  of  argument,  to  be  able,  if  need  be,  to  make  the 
worse  appear  the  better  reason  —  a  procedure  likely  to 
obscure  rather  than  clarify  the  ultimate  principles  of  truth, 
if  any  such  there  be.1  On  this  basis,  it  was  easily  possible 
for  a  conception  to  arise  which  should  reduce  society  to  a 
mere  complex  of  individual  men,  each  looking  out  primarily 
for  his  own  private  interests,  —  a  conception  which  had  its 
counterpart  in  that  atomism  in  the  outer  world,  with  which 
the  theories  of  the  physical  philosophers  had  already  fa- 
miliarized men's  minds. 

In  the  case  of  the  earlier  and  greater  Sophists,  there  is 
no  evidence  that  there  was  any  intention  thus  to  under- 
mine the  foundations  of  society,  or  to  promote  an  extreme 
scepticism  and  individualism.  For  the  most  part,  these 
were  men  of  excellent  moral  ideals,  who  honestly  meant 
to  train  their  pupils  to  a  life  of  virtue  and  usefulness  in 
the  state ;  the  famous  Choice  of  Hercules  by  Prodicus,  and 


1  This,  for  Aristophanes,  is  all  that  the  Sophist  stands  for,  and  no  doubt  in 
many  cases  the  emphasis  in  their  teaching  looked  sufficiently  in  this  direction 
to  give  grounds  for  his  strong  dislike.  Cf.  the  following  lines  from  the  Birds 
(Frere's  translation)  :  — 

"  Along  the  Sycophantic  shore, 
And  wher6  the  savage  tribes  adore 
The  waters  of  the  Clepsydra, 
There  dwells  a  nation,  stern  and  strong, 
Armed  with  an  enormous  tongue, 
Wherewith  they  smite  and  slay : 
With  their  tongues,  they  reap  and  sow, 
And  gather  all  the  fruits  that  grow, 
The  vintage  and  the  grain; 
Gorgias  is  their  chief  of  pride, 
And  many  more  there  be  beside 
Of  mickle  might  and  main. 
Good  they  never  teach,  nor  show 
But  how  to  work  men  harm  and  woe, 
Unrighteousness  and  wrong; 
And  hence  the  custom  doth  arise, 
When  beasts  are  slain  in  sacrifice, 
We  sever  out  the  tongue." 


Greek  Philosophy  45 

the  eloquent  discourse  of  Protagoras,  in  Plato's  dialogue  of 
the  same  name,  are  examples  of  what  their  teaching  could 
be  at  its  best.  Nevertheless,  the  forces  which  they  set  in 
motion  inevitably  led  beyond  their  own  position.  The  first 
step  had  been  to  abandon  the  nai've  acceptance  of  the 
obligatoriness  of  law  as  such.  The  growing  recognition  of 
the  great  diversity  in  the  practice  of  different  communities, 
and  the  habit,  which  democracy  fostered,  of  setting  up  the 
citizen  himself  to  judge  the  laws,  gradually  tended  to  break 
down  their  sanctity.  As,  however,  men  were  not  ready 
all  at  once  to  give  up  their  old  feeling  about  law,  there 
resulted  an  important  distinction.  This  was  the  distinc- 
tion between  merely  statute  law,  and  those  ultimate  prin- 
ciples on  which  the  moral  life  and  society  rest ;  or,  as  it 
came  to  be  expressed,  between  what  is  right  only  by  cus- 
tom or  convention,  and  what  is  right  by  nature.  This 
latter  was  at  first  found  somewhat  vaguely  in  the  law  of 
the  ethical  life,  or  "justice,"  which  thus  was  still  taken 
largely  for  granted. 

But  the  same  criticism  which  had  destroyed  the  abso- 
luteness of  ordinary  law,  was  presently  extended  to  the 
conception  of  moral  law  as  well.  The  almost  universal 
assumption  which  lay  back  of  moralizing  reflection  and 
ethical  exhortation  in  early  times  —  that  virtue  and  justice 
are  the  only  safe  way  of  getting  on  in  the  world,  and 
should  be  sought  as  a  matter  of  far-sighted  prudence  — 
became  less  obvious  the  more  it  was  pondered  over.  Such 
an  assumption  needs,  perhaps,  to  be  made  by  the  majority 
of  men,  if  they  are  to  remain  held  by  the  traditional 
virtues  ;  but  does  it  approve  itself  to  reason  ?  To  the 
intelligence  enlightened  by  the  casting  off  of  unthinking 
habits  of  moral  judgment,  as  to  the  writer  of  the  book  of 
Job,  it  does  not  seem  evident  that  the  righteous  always 
prosper,  and  the  wicked  come  to  grief.  Injustice  has  its 
full  share,  if  not  more  than  its  share,  of  the  good  things  of 
life,  and  apparently  enjoys  them  none  the  less  for  the 
crimes  that  have  been  committed  to  procure  them.  If, 


46          A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

then,  the  motive  of  conduct  is  our  own  advantage  and 
happiness,  —  and  what  other  end  can  maintain  itself  ?  — 
and  if  the  fear  of  the  gods,  whose  very  existence  is  in 
question,  is  no  longer  before  the  eyes  of  the  emancipated 
man,  have  virtue  and  justice  themselves  any  other  title  to 
our  respect  than  mere  convention  ?  It  may  be  advisable 
often  to  yield  to  the  prejudice  in  favor  of  these  things ; 
but  if  we  can  disregard  them  safely,  and  it  clearly  is  to  our 
interest  to  do  so,  it  is  only  folly  to  allow  mere  words  like 
"right"  and  "good,"  "injustice"  and  "evil,"  to  stand  in 
our  way. 

There  were  not  lacking  men  to  draw  this  final  conclu- 
sion. In  the  last  resort,  might  is  right.  The  law  of  nature 
is  to  satisfy,  if  we  can,  those  appetites  which  nature  has 
implanted  in  us,  in  common  with  the  rest  of  her  creatures. 
Moral  terms,  with  their  implication  of  praise  or  blame,  are 
only  conventional,  either  the  invention  of  the  many  to 
restrain  the  more  powerful  few,  or  of  rulers  who  wish 
thereby  to  rivet  the  chains  of  their  subjects.  "  For  nature 
herself  intimates  that  it  is  just  for  the  better  to  have  more 
than  the  worse,  the  more  powerful  than  the  weaker,  and 
in  many  ways  she  shows  among  men  as  well  as  among 
animals  that  justice  consists  in  the  superior  ruling  over  and 
having  more  than  the  inferior.  If  there  were  a  man  who 
had  sufficient  force,  he  would  trample  under  foot  all  our 
formulas  and  spells  and  charms,  and  all  our  laws,  sinning 
against  nature ;  the  slave  would  rise  in  rebellion  and  be 
lord  over  us,  and  natural  justice  would  shine  forth."  * 

The  outcome  of  such  a  tendency  was  bound  to  be  fatal 
to  the  welfare  of  Greek  society ;  and  the  perception  of  the 
danger  is  one  of  the  main  things  which  justify  us  in 
separating  Socrates  and  Plato  from  the  Sophists  in  the 
narrower  sense.  It  is  true  that  these  conclusions  were  not 
often  expressed  so  nakedly;  but  they  were  in  the  air. 

1  Plato,  Gorgias,  483.  This,  and  the  subsequent  quotations  from  Plato, 
are  from  Jowett's  translation.  (Oxford  University  Press.  American  ed.  by 
Chas.  Scribner's  Sons.) 


Greek  Philosophy  47 

Their  real  source  lies,  not  in  any  group  of  individual 
thinkers,  but  in  the  whole  state  of  political  life,  in  "  that 
great  Sophist,  the  Public,"  as  Plato  expresses  it.  The 
utter  unscrupulousness  and  rapacity  which  had  invaded  the 
relations  of  the  different  Greek  states  to  one  another,  could 
not  fail  to  be  carried  over  into  the  realm  of  private  morals  ; 
it  is  no  Sophist,  but  a  practical  politician  and  man  of  the 
world,  a  despiser  of  all  philosophy,  who  stands  in  Plato 
as  the  most  extreme  and  outspoken  representative  of  the 
gospel  of  force.  The  Sophistic  movement  was  not  a  cause, 
but  a  symptom ;  its  danger  lay  in  its  stimulation  of  pre- 
cisely those  tendencies  which  needed  control.  "The  Soph- 
ists do  but  fan  and  add  fuel  to  the  fire  in  which  Greece, 
as  they  wander  like  ardent  missionaries  about  it,  is  flam- 
ing itself  away."  * 

If,  now,  we  attempt  to  estimate  the  value  of  the  move- 
ment, it  may  be  said  that,  in  spite  of  its  failings,  it  represents 
an  important  stage  in  the  growth  of  human  intelligence. 
The  attitude  which  accepts  without  question  the  moral  and 
social  obligations  of  the  society  into  which  a  man  is  born, 
avoids  a  vast  amount  of  friction  and  unrest,  but  it  has  its 
drawbacks  as  well.  In  such  a  society,  there  is  no  inward 
principle  of  conscious  and  self-directed  growth.  Because 
men  have  simply  inherited  the  forms  of  their  belief  and 
conduct,  and  have  not  been  accustomed  to  ask  why  these 
are  accepted,  and  whether  they  really  perform  the  service 
that  would  justify  the  tenacity  with  which  they  are  held, 
there  is  no  way  of  going  to  work  consciously  to  change 
conditions.  And  when  changes  are  forced  upon  society 
through  the  stress  of  outward  circumstances,  men  are 
helpless  to  adapt  themselves  to  the  new  situation.  This 
power  of  adaptability,  which  is  so  necessary  to  progress, 
implies  that  the  individual  man  is  no  longer  swallowed  up 
in  his  tribe  or  state.  It  implies  that  he  has  recognized  his 
own  individuality,  his  right  to  appeal  from  the  bar  of  mere 
authority,  and  justify  to  himself  the  grounds  on  which  he 

1  Pater,  Plato  and  Platonhm. 


48          A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

is  to  believe  and  act.  So  long  as  primitive  social  condi- 
tions are  fairly  satisfactory,  and  maintain  themselves  in 
a  reasonable  degree  of  integrity,  the  positive  advantages 
which  they  offer,  as  the  safeguards  of  a  settled  life,  are  of 
too  much  value  to  be  lightly  trifled  with.  But  as  soon  as 
this  stability  begins  to  weaken,  as  it  was  commencing  to  do 
in  Greece,  a  change  of  attitude  is  a  necessity  of  self-pres- 
ervation. Men  can  no  longer  rest  upon  the  traditional 
forms  that  have  served  their  day ;  and  so  they  have  to 
fall  back  upon  themselves,  and  upon  their  ability  to  strike 
out  paths  in  a  measure  different  from  the  old.  And  the 
first  step  is,  to  recognize  their  independence  of  the  old ;  to 
recognize  that  there  is  at  least  a  sense  in  which  man  is 
greater  than  society,  and  has  the  right  to  make  society, 
with  all  its  creeds  and  institutions,  subservient  to  his  own 
needs  and  wishes. 

But  in  coming  to  recognize  this,  there  is  great  danger 
of  swinging  to  the  other  extreme,  which  itself  stands  in 
need  of  correction.  Let  it  be  granted  that  no  mere  author- 
ity of  gods,  or  king,  or  fellow-citizens,  has,  as  such,  any 
absolute  claim  on  the  individual  man ;  that  he  is  essen- 
tially free,  and  in  his  freedom  can  demand  that  every- 
thing claiming  authority  over  him,  should  first  approve 
itself  to  his  reason.  In  what,  nevertheless,  does  this  reason 
and  this  freedom  consist  ?  Is  man  the  measure  of  all 
things,  in  the  sense  that  each  man  has  his  own  private 
reason,  incommensurable  with  that  of  any  one  else  ?  And 
is  freedom,  similarly,  the  mere  right  to  do  as  one  individ- 
ually pleases?  It  is  to  this  that  the  Sophistic  thought 
tends  to  swing  ;  and  in  so  doing,  it  opens  up  one  of  the 
central  problems  of  philosophy.  What,  namely,  do  we 
mean  by  the  Individual?  Is  he  simply  the  self-centred 
unit  which  at  first  glance  he  seems  to  be ;  a  body  distinct 
from  all  other  bodies,  with  its  private  appetites  and  desires, 
seeking  to  compass  its  own  preservation  and  gratification, 
without  reference  to  any  one  else  ?  Is  he  a  reality  quite 
outside  his  relation  to  society  as  a  whole,  whose  existence, 


Greek  Philosophy  49 

therefore,  is  immaterial  to  him,  except  as  it  serves  to  further 
his  individual  and  sensuous  interests  ?  Or,  is  man's  nature 
to  be  taken  as  something  wider  than  this  ?  Is  it  possible, 
without  falling  back  upon  the  purely  external  restraints  of 
custom  and  authority,  to  find  in  man's  own  self  the  laws 
that  shall  connect  him  again  with  the  larger  life  of  the 
world,  and  enable  him  to  establish  securely  once  more  the 
concrete  institutions  of  society  and  the  state ;  not  now  as 
something  impressed  upon  him  from  the  outside,  but  as  an 
outgrowth  of  his  own  needs,  and  an  expression  of  his  own 
inmost  being  ? 

In  opposition  to  the  growing  individualism  of  the 
age,  Socrates  is  the  starting-point  for  another  tendency, 
which  became  more  clearly  conscious  in  his  successors, 
Plato  and  Aristotle.  This  is  the  tendency  to  emphasize 
the  more  universal  and  objective  sides  of  man's  life  and 
knowledge.  Socrates  is,  in  the  large  sense  of  the  word, 
himself  a  Sophist.  He  is  as  convinced  as  any  one,  of  the 
necessity  of  subjecting  the  grounds  of  conduct  to  a  rational 
examination,  instead  of  accepting  them  uncritically  on  the 
basis  of  tradition.  And  so  Aristophanes,  as  an  adherent  of 
the  Old  School,  selects  him  as  the  arch-Sophist,  to  pillory 
in  his  comedy  of  the  Clouds.  But  Socrates  also  is  fully 
and  consciously  possessed  of  the  unwavering  conviction 
that  morality  and  society  can  stand  the  test  of  this  inquiry. 
Far  from  landing  us  in  scepticism  and  ethical  anarchy, 
criticism  will  establish  all  the  more  firmly  the  subordina- 
tion of  the  individual  man  to  the  larger  social  order.  In 
his  dawning  perception  of  the  way  in  which  this  result  is 
to  be  brought  about,  Socrates  is  the  forerunner  of  some  of 
the  most  important  philosophical  tendencies  of  the  future. 

§  9.    Socrates 

Socrates  (469-399  B.C.)  was  the  son  of  an  Athenian 
sculptor,  but  early  abandoned  his  father's  profession  for 
the  more  congenial  pursuit  of  philosophy.  There  is  no 


50          A  Students  History  of  Philosophy 

more  picturesque  figure  in  the  history  of  Greece.  In  per- 
sonal appearance  the  very  opposite  of  the  Greek  ideal, 
with  protruding  eyes,  thick  lips,  and  snub  nose,  all  this 
was  forgotten  when  one  came  under  the  charm  of  his  per- 
sonality and  his  conversation.  And  conversation  was  the 
one  business  of  his  life.  Living  in  the  most  frugal  man- 
ner, his  meat  and  drink  of  the  cheapest  sort,  without  shoes 
to  his  feet  the  whole  year  round,  and  clinging  to  a  single 
threadbare  cloak  that  served  for  summer  and  winter  alike, 
he  spent  his  time  in  the  market-place,  or  wherever  men 
came  together,  satisfied  if  only  he  could  find  some  one  with 
whom  to  discourse  upon  the  questions  in  which  he  took  a 
perennial  interest.  "  I  have  a  benevolent  habit,"  he  says 
jokingly  in  one  of  Plato's  dialogues,  "  of  pouring  out  my- 
self to  everybody,  and  I  would  even  pay  for  a  listener  if  I 
couldn't  get  one  in  any  other  way." 

It  is  to  no  lack  of  seriousness,  however,  on  Socrates' 
part,  that  we  are  to  attribute  this  mode  of  life.  It  is  rather 
due  to  a  genuine  moral  purpose,  which  he  followed  consist- 
ently from  beginning  to  end.  As  he  tells  the  story  in 
Plato's  Apology,  the  report  had  come  to  him  that  Chaero- 
phon,  a  friend  of  his,  had  put  to  the  oracle  at  Delphi  the 
question  :  Is  any  man  living  wiser  than  Socrates  ?  and  the 
reply  had  been,  that  Socrates  was  indeed  wisest  of  man- 
kind. Unable,  in  the  consciousness  of  his  own  ignorance, 
to  understand  this,  and  yet  not  wanting  to  doubt  the  word 
of  the  god,  Socrates  had  gone  from  one  man  to  another 
who  was  reputed  wise,  that  he  might  test  this  wisdom; 
and  in  every  case  he  had  found  a  conceit  of  knowledge, 
with  nothing  in  reality  back  of  it.  A  little  questioning 
had  quickly  brought  to  light  that  each  man  was  as  igno- 
rant as  he  of  all  the  higher  concerns  of  human  life ;  the 
only  difference  lay  in  the  fact  that  all  the  rest  supposed 
themselves  to  be  very  wise  indeed,  whereas  Socrates, 
though  he  was  as  ignorant  as  they,  at  least  knew  that  he 
knew  nothing.  He  concluded,  therefore,  that  it  was  this 
consciousness  of  his  own  ignorance  to  which  the  oracle 


Greek  Philosophy  51 

had  been  referring,  and  that,  by  thus  commending  him, 
the  god  had  chosen  him  out  as  an  instrument  for  pricking 
the  bubble  of  universal  self-deception.  Convinced  pro- 
foundly that  knowledge  alone  is  salvation,  he  saw  that  the 
first  and  the  essential  step  toward  getting  rid  of  the  con- 
fused mass  of  opinion  going  by  the  name  of  knowledge, 
was  to  make  its  inadequacy  apparent.  He  was  the  divinely 
appointed  gadfly  given  to  the  state,  "  which  is  like  a  great 
and  noble  steed  who  is  tardy  in  his  motions  owing  to  his 
very  size,  and  requires  to  be  stirred  into  life." 

This  condition  of  ignorance  was  to  Socrates,  however, 
always  to  be  a  prelude  to  something  better,  not  an  end  in 
itself.  In  spite  of  his  insistence  upon  his  own  ignorance, 
no  one  can  be  more  thoroughly  convinced  that  there  is 
truth,  and  that  this  truth  is  attainable  by  man.  It  is  moral 
truth,  however,  not  scientific  or  metaphysical.  "  This  is 
the  point  in  which,  as  I  think,  I  am  superior  to  men  in 
general,  and  in  which  I  might,  perhaps,  fancy  myself  wiser 
than  other  men  —  that  whereas  I  know  but  little  of  the 
world  below,  I  do  not  suppose  that  I  know.  But  I  do 
know"  —  and  this  suggests  the  positive  side  —  "that  in- 
justice and  disobedience  to  a  better,  whether  God  or  man, 
is  evil  and  dishonorable,  and  I  will  never  fear  or  avoid  a 
possible  good  rather  than  a  certain  evil."  1  As  regards 
the  problems  with  which  the  physical  philosophers  had 
been  busy,  he  is  as  sceptical  as  any  one.  But  if  we  cannot 
know  the  movements  of  the  heavenly  bodies,  or  the  number 
of  the  primitive  elements,  at  least  we  may  console  our- 
selves with  the  thought  that  such  knowledge  would  be  of  no 
use  to  us  if  we  possessed  it.  All  that  man  really  needs  is 
the  knowledge  of  himself,  his  own  duty  and  end :  yvuOi 
aeavrov. 

It  was  of  the  things,  therefore,  that  lie  nearest  to  man's 
human  interests,  that  he  was  all  the  time  questioning  and 
debating  —  piety  and  impiety,  the  beautiful  and  the  ugly, 
the  noble  and  the  base,  the  just  and  the  unjust,  sobriety 

29. 


52  A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

and  madness,  courage  and  cowardice,  what  a  state  is,  and 
what  a  statesman,  what  a  ruler  over  men.  Of  anything 
whose  practical  bearing  was  not  at  once  manifest,  he  was 
openly  impatient.  All  that  really  concerns  man  is  how  to 
live  —  to  live  his  concrete  life  as  citizen  in  a  state.  So  long 
as  there  is  ignorance  almost  complete  on  this  all-important 
point,  we  have  no  energy  to  spare  for  guesses  about  non- 
essentials.  The  carpenter,  the  smith,  the  flute-player,  the 
pilot,  each  knows  his  own  business.  He  trains  himself  for 
one  definite  thing,  and  he  can  tell  you  just  what  that  thing 
is,  and  what  purpose  it  serves.  For  citizenship  alone,  in 
spite  of  its  being  vastly  more  complicated,  and  vastly  more 
important,  there  is  no  special  training,  and  there  is  no  defi- 
nite formulation  of  the  end  in  view.  Here  every  man  is 
supposed  to  be  competent  by  nature  to  pronounce  on  the 
most  abstruse  questions.  If  a  man  were  to  imagine  that 
his  mere  inclination  to  be  a  physician,  was  a  sufficient 
qualification  to  justify  him  in  hanging  out  his  sign,  he 
would  be  laughed  at.  But  men  will  aim  at  an  important 
office  in  the  state,  on  no  more  solid  grounds  than  that  they 
desire  the  office,  and  think  they  can  get  enough  of  their 
friends  to  vote  for  them  to  secure  it.  If  we  need  knowl- 
edge, then,  for  the  simplest  and  humblest  pursuits,  most 
of  all  do  we  need  it  for  that  pursuit  which  is  the  supreme 
end  of  man's  life.  And  given  adequate  knowledge,  nothing 
else  is  needed.  No  man  will  voluntarily  do  that  which  is 
against  his  best  interests;  since,  then,  right,  or  justice,  and 
these  best  interests  of  his  nature,  are  identical,  man  has 
only  to  know  the  right,  and  he  will  do  it  freely.  Virtue  is 
knowledge — this  is,  of  all  the  doctrines  that  go  back  to 
Socrates,  perhaps  the  most  characteristic. 

Socrates'  mission  is,  therefore,  in  his  own  eyes,  funda- 
mentally a  moral  and  religious  one.  "  Men  of  Athens,  I 
honor  and  love  you ;  but  I  shall  obey  God  rather  than  you, 
and  while  I  have  life  and  strength,  I  shall  never  cease  from 
the  practice  and  teaching  of  philosophy,  exhorting  every 
one  whom  I  meet  after  my  manner,  and  convincing  him, 


Greek  Philosophy  53 

saying  :  O  my  friend,  why  do  you,  who  are  a  citizen  of  the 
great  and  mighty  and  wise  city  of  Athens,  care  so  much 
about  laying  up  the  greatest  amount  of  money  and  honor 
and  reputation,  and  so  little  about  wisdom,  and  truth,  and 
the  greatest  improvement  of  the  soul,  which  you  never 
regard  or  heed  at  all?"  1  He  aims  at  knowledge,  accord- 
ingly, not  on  its  own  account,  but  that  it  may  be  put  in 
practice  ;  and  since,  in  the  field  of  ethics,  there  is  no  break 
between  knowing  and  doing,  in  making  men  wise,  he  is  at 
the  same  time  making  them  good.  Such  a  close  connec- 
tion between  knowledge  and  action  may  seem,  indeed,  to 
overlook  certain  obvious  facts  —  the  many  times  we  see 
and  approve  the  better,  and  yet  choose  the  worse.  Per- 
haps there  is  more  truth  than  we  commonly  admit  in  the 
answer,  that  such  knowledge  is  no  real  knowledge,  and 
that,  when  knowledge  is  truly  vital  and  realized,  it  always 
carries  action  with  it.  But  at  any  rate,  there  is  one  point 
which  stands  out  with  sufficient  clearness.  The  statement 
that  virtue  is  identical  with  knowledge  has  at  least  this 
meaning :  that  virtue  does  not  merely  consist  in  following 
the  customs  of  our  forefathers,  but  is  rationalized  conduct. 
And  so  it  has  nothing  to  fear,  on  the  contrary  it  has  every- 
thing to  hope,  from  the  most  thorough  scrutiny  of  reason. 
The  method  by  which  Socrates  attempted  to  secure  these 
results,  had  a  twofold  aspect.  He  begins  by  shaking  the 
foundations  of  a  false  assurance  of  knowledge.  Starting  in 
with  an  appearance  of  agreement,  and  a  depreciation  of  his 
own  wisdom,  as  compared  with  that  which  his  interlocutor 
undoubtedly  possesses,  he  induces  the  latter  to  offer  a  defi- 
nition of  the  matter  in  hand.  Then,  by  a  series  of  skilful 
questions,  he  develops  the  most  contradictory  conclusions 
from  this,  until,  as  Euthyphro  says,  "  somehow  or  other 
our  arguments,  on  whatever  grounds  we  rest  them,  seem  to 
turn  round  and  walk  away ;  "  and  the  one  with  whom  he  is 
arguing  is  compelled  to  confess  that  he  has  never  carefully 
considered  the  subject,  and  that  his  notions  about  it  are 

1  Apol.,  29. 


54          A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

indefinite,  and  based  on  mere  confused  opinion.  This  is 
the  famous  Socratic  irony.  For  example,  Euthydemus  is 
very  certain  that  he  knows  what  an  upright  and  righteous 
man  is.  I  see,  he  says,  you  are  afraid  I  cannot  expound 
the  works  of  righteousness  !  Why,  bless  me,  of  course  I  can, 
and  the  works  of  unrighteousness  into  the  bargain.  Very 
well,  replies  Socrates,  let  us  write  the  letter  R  on  this  side, 
and  the  letter  W  on  that;  and  then  anything  that  appears 
to  us  to  be  the  product  of  righteousness,  we  will  place  to 
the  R  account,  and  anything  that  appears  to  be  the  prod- 
uct of  wrong-doing,  to  the  account  of  W.  Where,  then, 
shall  we  place  lying  ?  Euthydemus  is  quite  confident  that 
this  will  go  under  W ;  and  so  also  will  deceit,  and  chicanery, 
and  the  enslavement  of  freeborn  men.  It  would  be  quite 
monstrous  to  put  these  on  the  side  of  right  and  justice. 

But  now,  says  Socrates,  suppose  a  man  to  be  elected 
general,  and  suppose  he  succeeds  in  enslaving  an  unjust 
and  hostile  state  ;  or  he  deceives  the  foe  while  at  war  with 
them,  and  pillages  their  property :  are  we  to  say  that  he  is 
doing  wrong  ?  And  if  he  is  not,  shall  we  not  be  compelled 
to  set  these  same  qualities  down  also  to  the  account  of  R  ? 
As  Euthydemus  is  forced  to  admit  this,  it  becomes  neces- 
sary to  change  the  definition ;  we  will  say  now  that  it  is 
right  to  do  such  things  to  a  foe,  but  it  still  is  wrong  to  do 
them  to  a  friend.  But  stay  a  moment,  Socrates  goes  on  ; 
suppose  a  general  invents  a  tale  to  encourage  his  demoral- 
ized troops,  or  a  father  uses  deceit  to  get  his  sick  child 
to  take  some  medicine  under  the  guise  of  something  nice 
to  eat,  or  you  rob  a  friend  of  a  knife  which  he  is  liable  to 
use  against  himself ;  are  these  things  wrong  too  ?  Is  a 
straightforward  course  to  be  pursued  in  such  cases,  even 
in  dealing  with  friends  ?  Heaven  forbid  !  the  young  man 
exclaims  ;  if  you  will  let  me,  I  take  back  my  former  state- 
ment once  more.  And  so  Socrates  continues,  until  Euthy- 
demus comes  to  the  conclusion  that  it  is  high  time  for 
him  to  keep  silence  altogether,  or  he  will  be  proved  to 
know  absolutely  nothing;  and  he  goes  off  with  his  self- 


Greek  Philosophy  55 

confidence  entirely  shattered,  though  for  that  very  reason 
in  a  much  more  teachable  spirit  than  at  the  start.1 

Along  with  this  negative  aspect,  however,  there  was  a 
more  positive  side.  Socrates'  method  rests  on  the  assump- 
tion that  every  man  has  within  him  the  possibility  of  knowl- 
edge. If  the  elements  of  knowledge  did  not  exist  down 
below  the  surface  of  opinion,  he  would  have  no  standard  by 
which  to  correct  his  first  thoughts.  Socrates'  questioning 
serves  only  to  disentangle  what  implicitly  is  there  already  ; 
he  is  an  intellectual  midwife,  to  bring  truth  to  its  birth. 
This  is  noteworthy  by  reason  of  the  fact  that  it  brings 
to  the  front  the  value  of  clear  and  exact  definition,  in 
opposition  to  the  confused,  self-contradictory,  altogether 
loose  and  popular  character  of  most  that  goes  under  the 
name  of  thinking,  —  faults  belonging  not  merely  to  com- 
mon opinion,  but  even  to  such  pretenders  to  scientific 
knowledge  as  the  Sophists,  with  their  fondness  for  florid 
rhetoric  and  exhortation.  But,  furthermore,  this  emphasis 
on  definition  had  other  and  far-reaching  results.  It  has  al- 
ready been  noticed  that  the  earlier  philosophers  were  com- 
pelled to  make  a  distinction  between  ordinary  opinion,  and 
philosophic  thought,  without,  however,  being  able  to  define 
this  very  clearly.  Since  there  was  often  a  complete  contra- 
diction between  their  own  views,  and  the  popular  beliefs,  the 
two  evidently  could  not  be  on  the  same  plane.  The  method 
of  Socrates  supplied  a  way  of  conceiving  in  what  the  dis- 
tinctiveness  of  thought  consists.  If  knowledge  is  possible, 
then  down  beneath  the  unessential  differences  due  to  in- 
dividual prejudices  and  opinions,  there  is  something  in 
which  all  men  agree,  or  can  be  led  to  agree.  The  method 
of  philosophy  will  consist  in  stripping  off  these  outer 
husks,  and  laying  bare  the  common,  universal  element 
which  they  conceal.  Thought,  i.e.,  deals  with  what  we 
call  the  concept,  or  general  notion.  This  gets  away  from 
mere  special  cases  and  illustrations,  and  sums  up  the 
essential  nature  of  the  thing,  which  marks  its  point  of 

1  Memorabilia,  IV,  2. 


56          A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

identity  with  other  things  of  the  same  sort,  and  without 
which  it  would  cease  to  be  what  it  is.  Instead,  then,  of 
taking  our  terms  for  granted  in  a  dogmatic  way,  we  need  to 
criticise  and  test  them,  and  find  out  what  we  really  mean 
by  them ;  only  when  we  have  brought  out  this  universal 
and  essential  element  have  we  anything  that  can  be  called 
science,  or  true  knowledge.  It  was  left  to  Socrates'  suc- 
cessor, Plato,  to  recognize  the  full  importance  of  this 
idea.  But  even  in  Socrates  it  clearly  points  away  from 
the  sceptical  and  individualistic  tendency.  Instead  of 
finding  man's  essential  nature  in  those  private  desires, 
feelings,  and  sensations,  which  in  a  way  separate  him 
from  other  men,  Socrates  looked  rather  to  the  rational  and 
universal  elements  in  him,  which  bind  all  men  together  in 
the  bonds  of  a  valid  knowledge,  and  in  subjection  to  the 
dictates  of  an  authoritative  conscience. 

Socrates  himself  was  never  able  fully  to  justify  this  view 
of  man  in  a  theoretical  way.  His  surety  rather  took 
the  form  of  faith  —  a  faith  that  in  obedience  to  the  laws 
of  conscience  and  of  society,  man's  true  life  would  be 
found  to  consist.  It  was  in  large  measure  this  unswerving 
confidence  in  the  truth  of  the  ethical  ideal,  which  does  not 
tolerate  the  least  paltering  with  duty,  even  while  our 
theoretical  inquiry  is  still  incomplete,  that  gave  Socrates 
his  great  influence.  He  himself  was  a  living  and  most 
impressive  embodiment  of  the  ideal  which  he  preached, 
—  simple  in  his  manner  of  life,  unflinching  in  his  courage, 
exercising  the  most  rigid  self-control  over  his  desires  and 
appetites.  "It  must  have  been,"  so  he  declared,  "by 
feeding  men  on  so  many  dainty  dishes,  that  Circe  produced 
her  pigs."  In  consequence  of  this  moderate  and  abste- 
mious life,  his  powers  of  endurance  were  remarkable.  On 
military  campaigns,  besides  showing  great  bravery  in  bat- 
tle, he  had  an  extraordinary  power  of  sustaining  fatigue, 
and  going  without  food  ;  "  and  when  during  a  severe  winter 
the  rest  either  remained  indoors,  or,  if  they  went  out,  had 
on  no  end  of  clothing,  and  were  well  shod,  and  had  their 


Greek  Philosophy  57 

feet  swathed  in  felts  and  fleeces,  in  the  midst  of  this 
Socrates,  with  his  bare  feet  on  the  ice,  and  in  his  ordinary 
dress,  marched  better  than  any  of  the  other  soldiers  who 
had  their  shoes  on." *  His  courage  was  shown  in  peace  as 
well  as  in  war.  When  acting  as  president  of  the  prytanes, 
he  had  declined,  in  face  of  the  popular  clamor,  to  put  to 
vote  illegally  the  resolution  condemning  the  generals  at 
Arginusae;  and  once  again,  in  the  perilous  times  under 
the  Thirty  Tyrants,  he  had,  at  the  risk  of  his  life,  refused 
to  act  contrary  to  the  laws  at  their  bidding.  This  combi- 
nation of  rectitude  of  character,  with  striking  intellectual 
gifts  —  a  combination  which  his  personal  peculiarities 
served  rather  to  heighten  than  obscure  —  gave  to  Socra- 
tes an  influence  on  the  thought  of  his  day  equalled  by  that 
of  no  other  man. 

It  is  not  strange,  however,  that  he  should  have  raised 
up  enemies  as  well  as  friends.  Few  people  can  bear 
with  equanimity  the  public  exposure  of  their  own  igno- 
rance ;  and  Socrates'  conception  of  his  moral  mission  made 
him  careless  of  the  hard  feelings  he  might  excite.  He 
fell,  too,  under  the  public  suspicion  which  the  sceptical 
and  irreligious  tendencies  of  the  Sophistic  movement  had 
aroused  in  the  minds  of  lovers  of  the  old  way  of  things, 
although  he  was  himself  of  a  deeply  religious  nature,  and 
an  observer  of  the  customary  forms  of  worship.  Not  long 
after  the  overthrow  of  the  Thirty,  therefore,  he  was  pub- 
licly accused  of  denying  the  gods  of  the  city,  and  of 
corrupting  its  youths,  and  was  brought  to  trial.  If  he  had 
been  willing  to  adopt  a  conciliatory  tone,  he  probably 
would  have  escaped ;  but  he  refused  to  lower  himself  by 
flattering  the  people,  when  he  was  conscious  of  no  guilt, 
and  by  a  narrow  vote,  he  was  condemned  to  drink  the 
hemlock. 

"  And  Crito  made  a  sign  to  the  servant ;  and  the  ser- 
vant went  in,  and  remained  for  some  time,  and  then 
returned  with  the  jailer  carrying  the  cup  of  poison.  Soc- 

1  Symposium,  220. 


58          A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

rates  said:  You,  my  good  friend,  who  are  experienced  in 
these  matters,  shall  give  me  directions  how  I  am  to  pro- 
ceed. The  man  answered :  You  have  only  to  walk  about 
until  your  legs  are  heavy,  and  then  to  lie  down,  and  the 
poison  will  act.  At  the  same  time  he  handed  the  cup  to 
Socrates,  who  in  the  easiest  and  gentlest  manner,  without 
the  least  fear  or  change  of  color  or  feature,  looking  at 
the  man  with  all  his  eyes,  as  his  manner  was,  took  the  cup 
and  said :  What  do  you  say  about  making  a  libation  out 
of  this  cup  to  any  god  ?  May  I,  or  not  ?  The  man  an- 
swered: We  only  prepare,  Socrates,  just  so  much  as  we 
deem  enough.  I  understand,  he  said ;  yet  I  may  and  must 
pray  to  the  gods  to  prosper  my  journey  from  this  to  that 
other  world  —  may  this,  then,  which  is  my  prayer,  be 
granted  to  me.  Then  holding  the  cup  to  his  lips,  quite 
readily  and  cheerfully  he  drank  off  the  poison.  And 
hitherto  most  of  us  had  been  able  to  control  our  sorrow ; 
but  now  when  we  saw  him  drinking,  and  saw  too  that  he 
had  finished  the  draught,  we  could  no  longer  forbear,  and 
in  spite  of  myself  my  own  tears  were  flowing  fast ;  so  that 
I  covered  my  face  and  wept  over  myself,  for  certainly  I 
was  not  weeping  over  him,  but  at  the  thought  of  my  own 
calamity  in  having  lost  such  a  companion.  Nor  was  I  the 
first,  for  Crito,  when  he  found  himself  unable  to  restrain 
his  tears,  had  got  up  and  moved  away,  and  I  followed ; 
and  at  that  moment  Apollodorus,  who  had  been  weeping 
all  the  time,  broke  out  into  a  loud  cry  which  made  cowards 
of  us  all.  Socrates  alone  retained  his  calmness :  What 
is  this  strange  outcry  ?  he  said.  I  sent  away  the  women 
mainly  in  order  that  they  might  not  offend  in  this  way, 
for  I  have  heard  that  a  man  should  die  in  peace.  Be 
quiet,  then,  and  have  patience.  When  we  heard  that,  we 
were  ashamed,  and  refrained  our  tears;  and  he  walked 
about  until,  as  he  said,  his  legs  began  to  fail,  and  then  he 
lay  on  his  back,  according  to  the  directions,  and  the  man 
who  gave  him  the  poison  now  and  then  looked  at  his  feet 
and  legs ;  and  after  a  while  he  pressed  his  foot  hard,  and 


Greek  Philosophy  59 

asked  him  if  he  could  feel ;  and  he  said,  No ;  and  then  his 
leg,  and  so  upwards  and  upwards,  and  showed  us  that  he 
was  cold  and  stiff.  And  he  felt  them  himself,  and  said : 
When  the  poison  reaches  the  heart,  that  will  be  the  end. 
He  was  beginning  to  grow  cold  about  the  groin,  when  he 
uncovered  his  face,  for  he  had  covered  himself  up,  and 
said  (they  were  his  last  words)  —  he  said:  Crito,  I  owe  a 
cock  to  Asclepius;  will  you  remember  to  pay  the  debt? 
The  debt  shall  be  paid,  said  Crito ;  is  there  anything  else  ? 
There  was  no  answer  to  this  question ;  but  in  a  minute  or 
two  a  movement  was  heard,  and  the  attendant  uncovered 
him ;  his  eyes  were  set,  and  Crito  closed  his  eyes  and 
mouth. 

Such  was  the  end,  Echecrates,  of  our  friend,  whom  I 
may  truly  call  the  wisest,  and  justest,  and  best  of  all  the 
men  whom  I  have  ever  known."  * 


LITERATURE 

Plato,  esp.  Oiarmides,  Lysis,  Laches,  fan,  Meno,  Euthyphro,  Protago- 
ras, Gorgias,  Apology,  Crito,  Phcedo,  Symposium. 
Xenophon,  Memorabilia,  Apology,  Banquet. 
Grote,  History  of  Greece,  Vol.  8. 
Zeller,  Socrates  and  the  Socratic  Schools. 
Forbes,  Socrates. 


§   10.     The  Schools  of  Megara  and  Elis.     Aristippus  and 
the  Cyrenaics.     Antisthenes  and  the  Cynics 

The  influence  which  Socrates  left  behind  him,  while 
it  was  widespread  and  profound,  was  not  so  much  the  influ- 
ence of  a  definite  philosophical  doctrine,  to  which,  indeed, 
he  never  wholly  attained,  as  of  an  impressive  personality. 
There  are,  accordingly,  a  number  of  distinct  schools  trac- 
ing their  origin  to  him.  In  addition  to  the  more  impor- 
tant development  of  Socrates'  teaching  in  Plato,  there  were 

1  Pkado,  117. 


60          A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

also  the  relatively  unimportant  schools  of  Megara  and  Elis, 
founded  respectively  by  Euclides  and  Pk&do;  and  the  more 
striking  tendencies  represented  in  the  Cynics  and  Cyrena- 
ics.  In  these  latter,  we  meet  the  first  definite  formulation 
of  the  two  great  types  of  ethical  theory,  which  ever  since 
have  been  contending  with  each  other  in  the  history  of 
thought.  Both  of  them  profess  to  go  back  to  Socrates.  As 
we  have  seen,  Socrates'  own  conception  of  the  true  end  of 
human  life  was  vague  in  its  outlines.  That  virtue  is  the 
highest  good,  and  that  virtue  is  intimately  bound  up  with 
the  possession  of  knowledge  or  insight  —  of  this  he  was 
assured.  But  virtue,  or  insight,  is  good  for  what?  For 
its  own  sake  ?  That  leaves  no  content  to  virtue.  To  say 
that  the  supreme  good  is  virtue,  and  that  virtue  is  insight 
into  the  good,  seems  to  be  going  in  a  circle ;  good  for  what  ? 
we  ask  again.  Now  the  one  obvious  and  seemingly  unam- 
biguous answer  to  this  is :  pleasure,  or  happiness.  This 
gives  at  last  a  definite  content.  All  men  will  agree  that 
pleasure  is  a  good  in  its  own  right,  needing  no  justification 
by  reference  to  a  more  remote  end ;  and  it  is  the  only  good 
about  which  they  would  so  agree. 

i.  The  Cyrenaics.  —  Socrates  himself  had  had  a  leaning 
toward  this  solution,  although  he  had  not  been  altogether 
satisfied  with  it ;  but  with  Aristippns  of  Cyrene,  it  is  elevated 
to  the  position  of  a  central  doctrine.  Pleasure  is  man's  sole 
good  —  pleasure  in  the  most  concrete  form,  and  so,  first  of 
all,  the  more  intensive  pleasures  of -the  body,  although  not 
such  pleasures  exclusively.  If  we  could  live  from  moment 
to  moment,  filling  each  with  the  fullest  delight  that  sense  and 
mind  alike  are  capable  of  receiving,  that  would  be  the  ideal 
of  life.  Unfortunately  there  are  difficulties — practical  diffi- 
culties—  in  the  way  of  this.  Our  acts  have  consequences 
that  we  do  not  intend,  and  so  in  our  well-meant  pursuit  of 
pleasure,  we  are  apt  —  nay,  we  are  sure  —  continually  to  be 
blundering  upon  pain  and  loss.  Here,  therefore,  is  the 
place  for  the  Socratic  insight.  Only  the  wise  man  can  be 
truly  and  permanently  happy,  —  he  who  does  not  let  him- 


Greek  Philosophy  61 

self  be  carried  off  his  feet  by  the  rush  of  his  passion ;  who 
can  enjoy,  but  at  the  same  time  be  above  enjoyment,  its 
master.  Wisdom  is  thus  no  sober  kill-joy.  It  means 
simply  the  ability  to  weigh  and  compound  our  pleasures 
well ;  the  ability,  while  we  seize  the  fleeting  moment,  at 
the  same  time,  in  full  possession  of  ourselves,  to  look  be- 
yond the  moment,  foresee  the  consequences  our  acts  will 
entail,  and  choose  accordingly.  Since,  then,  it  is  the  part 
of  wisdom  to  avoid  pain,  as  well  as  to  win  pleasure,  the 
life  of  purely  sensuous  enjoyment  will  have  to  be  checked 
and  moderated  in  some  degree,  in  favor  of  the  less  intense, 
but  safer,  joys  of  the  mind.  We  are  not  to  suppose  that 
there  is  any  shame  attaching  to  the  life  of  the  senses  as 
such,  or  any  higher  law  to  which  this  is  subordinate; 
"  nothing  is  disgraceful  in  itself."  The  necessity  is  based 
merely  on  prudential  grounds,  because  to  the  abuse  of  such 
bodily  pleasures,  more  definite  penalties  are  attached. 

This  conception  of  the  end  of  life  is  known  as  Hedonism, 
and  it  never  has  been  formulated  more  consistently  and 
forcibly  than  in  this  statement  of  it  first  given  by  Aristip- 
pus.  It  is  true  that  it  affords  no  room  for  the  play  of  those 
finer  sentiments  about  the  good  and  the  just,  the  beauty  of 
righteousness,  the  nobility  of  duty.  But  in  compensation, 
it  offers  a  well-defined  view  of  life,  with  no  nonsense  about 
it,  which  lends  itself  to  what  is  intellectually  the  simplest 
and  most  clear-cut  of  theories,  and  which,  besides,  appeals 
powerfully  to  the  natural  man.  Naturally,  this  cutting 
away  of  the  roots  of  the  moral  sentiments  also  carried 
with  it  religion.  Theodorus  is  known  as  the  Atheist  ^  and 
Euhemerus  is  the  originator  of  a  philosophy  of  religion  on 
a  naturalistic  basis,  in  which  the  stories  of  the  gods  are 
carried  back  to  historical  events  in  the  lives  of  human  kings 
and  heroes,  misinterpreted  by  tradition  —  a  theory  which 
had  great  notoriety  in  ancient  times. 

Evidently,  in  all  this,  the  really  characteristic  element  in 
Socrates'  thought  has  been  lost.  The  universal  factor 
in  human  life  and  knowledge,  on  which  Socrates  had  so 


62  A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

strongly  insisted,  has  no  place  in  the  Cyrenaic  scheme.  Pleas- 
ure is  essentially  an  individual  matter,  and  the  Cyrenaics 
were  too  logical  to  try,  as  more  modern  Hedonists  have  done, 
to  make  it  yield  as  a  result  the  desirability  of  the  common 
good —  the  greatest  happiness  of  the  greatest  number. 
The  pleasure  which  each  man  should  seek  for  is,  of  course, 
his  own.  He  is  an  individual  looking  out  for  number  one, 
and  beyond  this  has  no  obligations  to  society  or  the  state. 
Society,  in  consequence,  breaks  up  into  a  bundle  of  indi- 
vidual units.  It  is  a  mere  name,  with  which  the  wise  man 
will  not  concern  himself.  "  I  do  not  dream  for  a  moment," 
says  Aristippus  to  Socrates,  "  of  ranking  myself  in  the  class 
of  those  who  wish  to  rule.  In  fact,  considering  how  serious 
a  business  it  is  to  cater  for  one's  private  needs,  I  look  upon 
it  as  the  mark  of  a  fool  not  to  be  content  with  that,  but  to 
further  saddle  oneself  with  the  duty  of  providing  the  rest 
of  the  community  with  whatever  they  may  be  pleased  to 
want.  Why,  bless  me,  states  claim  to  treat  their  rulers  pre- 
cisely as  I  treat  my  domestic  slaves.  I  expect  my  attend- 
ants to  furnish  me  with  an  abundance  of  necessaries,  but 
not  to  lay  a  finger  on  one  of  them  themselves.  So  these 
states  regard  it  as  the  duty  of  a  ruler  to  provide  them  with 
all  the  good  things  imaginable,  but  to  keep  his  own  hands 
off  them  all  the  while.  So,  then,  for  my  part,  if  any  one 
desires  to  have  a  heap  of  pother  himself,  and  be  a  nuisance 
to  the  rest  of  the  world,  I  will  educate  him  in  the  manner 
suggested  ;  but  for  myself,  I  beg  to  be  enrolled  amongst 
those  who  wish  to  spend  their  days  as  easily  and  pleasantly 
as  possible."  1  So  also  Theodorus  :  "  It  is  not  reasonable 
that  a  wise  man  should  hazard  himself  for  his  country,  and 
endanger  wisdom  for  a  set  of  fools." 

The  difficulty  of  this  is,  that  the  universe  does  not  seem 
to  be  arranged  for  the  purpose  of  enabling  gentlemen  to 
avoid  all  disagreeable  duties,  and  live  "  as  easily  and  pleas- 
antly as  possible."  It  is  this  logic  of  experience,  which 
leads  the  Cyrenaics  to  a  recognition  of  the  impossibility  of 

1  Xenophon,  Memorabilia,  II,  I.    Dakyn's  translation.     (Macmillan  &  Co.) 


Greek  Philosophy  63 

getting  pleasure  unmixed  with  pain,  and  so  to  a  growing 
tendency  to  substitute  mere  freedom  from  pain,  for  posi- 
tive happiness.  This  reaches  its  issue  in  the  open  pes- 
simism of  Hegesias.  Hegesias  feels  so  strongly  how 
ill-calculated  life  is  to  yield  even  a  balance  of  pleasure, 
except  for  the  favored  few,  that  he  denies  to  it  all  value : 
"  Life  only  appears  a  good  thing  to  a  fool,  to  the  wise  man 
it  is  indifferent."  He  finds  his  only  comfort  in  the  utter 
painlessness  of  death ;  and  he  presents  this  thought  so  per- 
suasively, that  he  is  known  as  TreicriddvaTos — the  inciter  to 
death,  or  suicide. 

2.  The  Cynics.  —  In  opposition  to  Aristippus'  one-sided  in- 
sistence on  pleasure,  Antisthenes  and  the  Cynics  fastened  on 
another  aspect  of  Socrates'  doctrine,  which  might  be  taken 
to  represent  his  real  spirit  more  adequately ;  although  in  their 
hands  it  becomes  equally  one-sided.  It  has  been  seen  that 
while  Socrates  is  quite  sure  that  man's  chief  good  is  virtue, 
and  that  virtue  is  bound  up  with  knowledge,  this  leaves  the 
content  of  virtue  undetermined,  and,  consequently,  gives 
no  practical  guidance  for  the  direction  of  our  lives.  But 
another  hint  also  had  been  offered  by  Socrates  to  supply 
the  deficiency.  When  Socrates  is  taunted  by  Antiphon 
with  his  frugal  way  of  living,  and  with  the  absence  of  all 
pleasures  from  his  life,  Socrates  concludes  his  reply  in 
these  words :  "  Again,  if  it  be  a  question  of  helping  our 
friends  or  country,  which  of  the  two  will  have  the  larger 
leisure  to  devote  to  these  objects  ?  he  who  leads  the  life 
which  I  lead  to-day  ?  or  he  who  lives  in  the  style  which 
you  deem  so  fortunate  ?  Which  of  the  two  will  adopt  a 
soldier's  life  more  easily  ?  the  man  who  cannot  get  on  with- 
out expensive  living,  or  he  to  whom  whatever  comes  to 
hand  suffices  ?  Which  will  be  the  readier  to  capitulate  and 
cry  mercy  in  a  siege  ?  a  man  of  elaborate  wants,  or  he  who 
can  get  along  happily  with  the  readiest  things  to  hand  ? 
You,  Antiphon,  would  seem  to  suggest  that  happiness  con- 
sists in  luxury  and  extravagance ;  I  hold  a  different  creed. 
To  have  no  wants  at  all  is,  to  my  mind,  an  attribute  of 


64          A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

godhead ;  to  have  as  few  wants  as  possible,  the  nearest 
approach  to  godhead.  And  as  that  which  is  divine  is 
mightiest,  so  that  is  next  mightiest  which  comes  closest  to 
the  divine."  1  Now  if  virtue,  as  the  rational  conduct  of  life, 
is  to  be  an  end  in  itself,  and  bring  satisfaction  quite  apart 
from  all  external  aids,  it  follows  that  the  course  of  our  life 
must  be  freed  as  much  as  possible  from  the  chances  of  the 
outer  world,  which  are  constantly  liable  to  interfere  with 
our  happiness,  if  this  is  dependent  upon  them.  It  must 
be  freed,  that  is,  from  everything  which  does  not  lie  wholly 
within  the  power  of  the  mind  itself.  And  this  can  only 
be  done  by  suppressing  the  desires  which  make  things 
attractive  or  fearful.  According  to  Antisthenes,  then,  that 
is  the  truest,  and  the  only  rational  and  virtuous  life,  which 
has  the  fewest  possible  wants,  and  which  is  thus,  in  so  far 
as  may  be,  self-centred,  and  independent  of  all  external 
vicissitudes. 

Such  an  ideal  as  this  might  be  interpreted  in  a  way  to 
make  it  decidedly  inviting  to  a  mind  with  any  tinge  of 
moral  enthusiasm.  As  it  is  exemplified  in  Socrates  him- 
self, e.g.,  it  possesses  a  high  degree  of  charm.  Socrates 
does  not  inveigh  against  the  pleasures  of  life  as  such ;  in- 
deed, he  commends  his  own  life  as  in  reality  yielding  more 
solid  pleasures  than  the  self-indulgent  man  ever  can  attain. 
The  zest  of  a  healthy  appetite  will  give  a  relish  to  the 
coarsest  and  most  moderate  fare,  which  no  spices  can 
afford  the  jaded  palate.  But  the  wise  man  never  will  fall 
a  slave  to  his  appetites,  and  let  them  become  necessary 
to  his  existence ;  he  estimates  the  worth  of  his  own  man- 
hood too  highly  for  that.  And  he  will  find  his  main  de- 
light rather  in  those  higher  pleasures  which  belong  more 
intimately  to  his  nature  as  a  man  —  friendship,  conversa- 
tion, the  joys  of  the  intellect,  and  of  service  to  the  com- 
munity. His  independence  of  the  world  is  not  the  casting 
away  of  all  obligations  to  his  fellow-men,  but  rather  the 
steadfast  pursuance  of  duty  regardless  of  its  consequences. 

1  Xenophon,  Memorabilia,  I,  6. 


Greek  Philosophy  65 

But  this,  again,  implies  a  concrete  and  positive  content 
to  virtue.  If  virtue  is  really  made  to  consist  in  a  purely 
negative  freedom  from  wants,  it  loses  at  once  its  inspiration, 
and  lands  us  in  the  same  individualism  that  had  resulted 
from  Aristippus'  doctrine  of  pleasure.  The  ideal  of  the 
Cynic  is  to  rid  himself,  not  only  of  those  artificial  wants 
which  complicate  and  enervate  life,  but  of  all  ties  whatso- 
ever that  relate  him  to  the  rest  of  the  world.  He  places 
himself  deliberately  outside  the  current  of  the  world's  life, 
but  it  is  not  because,  like  the  early  Christian,  he  finds  here 
no  abiding  city,  and  so  looks  for  another  and  a  heavenly. 
He  breaks  all  national  and  civic  bonds,  not  to  enter  into 
some  higher  life,  but  to  be  free  from  bonds  altogether. 
Like  the  Cyrenaic,  he  is  a  cosmopolitan,  a  citizen  of  the 
world ;  but  in  neither  case  does  this  term  stand  for  any 
enthusiasm  for  humanity,  but  only  for  a  negation  of  social 
duties.  In  the  midst  of  civilized  society,  he  tries  to  live  in 
a  state  of  nature,  and  lead  the  existence  of  a  savage.  Diog- 
enes wanders  about  Greece  with  no  other  shelter  than  a 
tub,  and  throws  away  his  cup  as  a  last  useless  luxury,  on 
seeing  a  child  drink  from  his  hands. 

This  attitude  might  call  for  sympathy  as  a  somewhat 
ostentatious  acceptance  of  an  enforced  exclusion  from  the 
goods  of  civilization.  Cynicism  was,  indeed,  essentially 
the  philosophy  of  the  poor  man,  who  already  knew  what 
it  was  to  feel  wants  unsatisfied,  before  he  made  a  virtue 
of  his  necessity.  But  the  Cynic  did  not  stop  here.  Decency 
itself  he  places  among  the  conventions  of  which  he  prides 
himself  on  being  rid ;  and  even  such  doctrines  as  the  com- 
munity of  women,  and  the  harmlessness  of  eating  human 
flesh,  are  propounded  in  the  most  offensive  way.  Under 
such  conditions,  ethical  and  intellectual  ideals  cannot  long 
survive.  When  the  human  relationships  which  constitute 
the  central  fact  of  the  ethical  life  are  torn  away,  it  is  not 
strange  that  there  should  have  resulted  a  moral  temper, 
which  sometimes  approached  the  grossness  of  the  animal ; 
and  with  no  content  for  the  intellect  to  feed  upon,  it,  too, 


66          A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

could  have  no  healthy  growth.  The  dominant  characteristic 
of  the  Cynic  came  to  be  a  Pharisaic  pride  in  his  own 
spiritual  poverty,  which  showed  itself  in  a  flaunting  of  his 
peculiarities  in  the  face  of  every  one,  and  in  sneers  at  the 
practices  which  he  condemned.  The  independence  which 
he  prized  almost  more  than  anything  else,  was  the  freedom 
of  a  sharp  tongue,  which  held  no  man  in  reverence ;  and 
his  apparent  self-abasement  was  only  the  mask  for  an  arro- 
gant criticism  of  others.  I  see  your  pride,  says  Socrates  to 
Antisthenes,  through  the  holes  in  your  cloak.  The  typical 
figure  of  Cynicism  is  Diogenes  in  his  tub,  ordering  Alex- 
ander to  stand  out  of  his  sunlight.  The  truth  in  Cynicism 
passed  over  to  the  later  Stoics,  as  the  Cyrenaic  philosophy 
was  revived  in  Epicureanism ;  but  in  Stoicism  this  is  so 
much  more  impressively  formulated,  that  we  may  postpone 
any  further  consideration  of  it  for  the  present. 

LITERATURE 

Watson,  Hedonistic  Theories. 

Grote,  Plato  and  the  Other  Companions  of  Socratts. 

Seth,  Study  of  Ethical  Principles. 

Zeller,  Socrates  and  the  Socratic  Schools. 


THE   SYSTEMATIC    PHILOSOPHERS 


§  II.   Plato.     The  Academy 

For  the  history  of  philosophy,  however,  the  movements 
which  have  just  been  considered  represent  only  by-paths; 
the  main  development  from  Socrates  passes  through  Plato 
and  Aristotle.  Plato,  who  stands  among  the  supreme  men 
of  genius  that  the  world  has  produced,  was  born  in  427  B.C. 
He  was  a  thorough  aristocrat,  alike  by  birth  and  in  his 
whole  temper  of  mind.  He  has  a  profound  contempt  for 
the  opinions  of  the  masses,  and  a  true  aristocrat's  dislike 
of  any  taint  of  the  shop  or  the  workman's  bench.  Accord- 
ingly, in  spite  of  exceptional  opportunities  for  a  political 
career,  he  never  entered  public  life  in  Athens,  choosing 
not  to  sacrifice  his  own  freedom  of  thought  and  action  to 
an  ambition  which  must  make  him  the  servant  of  a  fickle 
and  Philistine  democracy.  In  Plato,  consequently,  phi- 
losophy begins  to  take  on  that  character  of  remoteness 
from  practical  concerns,  and  absorption  in  the  affairs  of 
the  pure  intellect,  which,  save  in  certain  exceptional  periods, 
it  has  had  a  tendency  to  retain  ever  since. 

This  is  very  different  from  the  spirit  of  Socrates.  Soc- 
rates, himself  a  man  of  the  people,  was,  in  spite  of  his  own 
disinclination  to  meddle  very  much  in  matters  of  practical 
politics,  all  the  time  looking  toward  the  practical  life  of 
citizenship  in  his  speculations.  It  is  the  end  of  life  in  its 
most  concrete  sense  that  he  is  endeavoring  to  formulate. 
This  end  is  attained,  not  in  the  philosopher  who  stands 
aloof  from  the  world,  absorbed  in  transcendental  dreams 
and  abstractions,  but  in  the  citizen  and  man  of  affairs,  who 
has  something  definite  to  do  in  the  actual  life  about  him, 

67 


68          A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

and  needs  to  do  it  in  the  best  way.  This,  however,  implies 
a  confidence  in  the  ability  of  social  institutions  to  meet 
the  strain  to  which  they  were  being  subjected;  and  this 
confidence  became  less  easy  to  maintain  as  time  went  on. 
The  growing  revelation  of  the  insecurity  of  a  civilization 
founded  on  custom,  and  the  signs  that  the  Greek  states 
were  already  beginning  to  break  down,  are  registered  in 
this  difference  of  attitude  in  the  case  of  Socrates  and  of 
Plato.  Plato  still  holds,  in  a  way,  to  the  Greek  conception 
of  true  life  as  essentially  a  life  in  the  state,  although  this 
already  is  being  hard  pressed  by  the  opposing  ideal  of  dis- 
interested philosophic  contemplation,  which  finds  salvation 
in  the  kingdom  of  the  mind  alone.  But  at  least  he  no 
longer  expects  to  find  the  conception  realized  in  actual 
conditions  in  Greece,  and  turns  instead  to  an  ideal  state,  a 
Utopia,  a  pattern  laid  up  in  the  heavens,  which  there  is 
only  a  faint  hope  will  ever  be  embodied  upon  earth. 

Plato  came  under  the  influence  of  Socrates  when  he 
was  about  twenty,  and  remained  with  him  until  Socrates' 
death,  eight  years  later.  We  have  little  knowledge  of  him 
during  this  period,  though  he  seems  to  have  been  within 
the  inner  circle  of  Socrates'  disciples  and  friends.  After 
his  master's  death  he  left  Athens,  and  spent  ten  years  in 
travel.  During  this  time  he  became  acquainted  with 
other  philosophical  tendencies  of  the  day,  particularly  at 
Megara,  and  among  the  Pythagoreans  in  Southern  Italy. 
These  influences  tended  to  modify  and  broaden  his  own 
thought,  and  to  lead  him  away  from  the  exclusively  ethical 
interests  of  the  Socratic  philosophy.  In  Sicily  he  came 
in  contact  with  the  celebrated  tyrant  Dionysius,  and  got 
along  with  him  so  ill,  that  he  is  said  to  have  been  sold  into 
slavery,  from  which  he  was  ransomed  by  a  friend.  On  his 
return  to  Athens,  a  group  of  disciples  gathered  about  him, 
and  he  became  himself  the  founder  of  a  school.  This  took 
the  name  of  the  Academy,  from  a  gymnasium  just  outside 
the  city,  where  Plato  had  a  small  estate,  and  where  the 
members  of  the  school  were  accustomed  to  meet.  Here 


The  Systematic  Philosophers  69 

he  spent  an  uneventful  life  as  a  teacher,  broken  —  if  we 
can  accept  the  accounts  that  have  come  down  to  us  —  by 
two  more  visits  to  Sicily.  Dion,  the  brother-in-law  of 
Dionysius,  had  become  an  ardent  disciple  of  Plato's. 
After  the  tyrant's  death,  he  induced  Plato  to  come  to 
Sicily,  and  undertake  the  education  of  the  weak  and  dis- 
solute Dionysius  the  Younger.  Here  was  an  opportunity 
such  as  Plato  had  looked  forward  to :  the  combination  of 
the  supreme  power  in  a  state,  with  the  possibility  of  a 
true  philosophical  training,  might  conceivably  result  in 
the  philosopher-king  of  Plato's  imagination,  and  the  con- 
sequent establishment  of  the  ideal  government  which 
should  regenerate  men.  At  first  he  was  measurably  suc- 
cessful, and  made  an  impression  on  the  better  side  of  the 
young  king's  nature.  For  a  time  philosophy  was  the 
fashion  in  the  Sicilian  courts ;  the  floors  were  strewn  with 
sand,  and  the  courtiers  suspended  their  revels,  and  busied 
themselves  tracing  geometrical  figures.  But  Dionysius's 
nature  was  too  feeble,  and  court  influences  too  profoundly 
opposed  to  a  reign  of  virtue  and  reason,  to  allow  the 
experiment  a  very  long  life  ;  and  Plato  finally  returned  to 
Athens.  He  died  in  347  B.C. 

I.   Ethical  Philosophy 

I.  The  Problem  of  Ethics. —  Perhaps  we  can  best  get 
hold  of  the  spirit  of  Plato's  thought,  by  starting  from  the 
ethical  problem  which  he  inherited  from  Socrates,  since  the 
ethical  conception  of  the  ultimate  end  of  life,  the  highest 
good,  is  closely  bound  up  with  even  his  more  purely  meta- 
physical speculations.  Now,  when  we  begin  to  ask  what  con- 
stitutes the  end  of  human  life,  the  most  obvious  suggestion 
will  be,  once  more,  that  it  consists  in  happiness,  or  pleasure. 
There  is,  however,  a  difficulty  here  at  once,  unless  we  guard 
ourselves ;  for  no  one  will  deny  that  pleasure  may  quite  as 
well  be  an  evil  as  a  good,  and  may  even  be  the  most  serious 
of  evils.  A  moment  of  enjoyment  may  bring  in  its  train  a 


70          A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

swarm  of  disastrous  consequences,  which  vastly  overbalance 
it ;  and  that  pleasure  is  rare  indeed,  which  has  not  some 
attendant  ill.  "  How  singular  a  thing  is  pleasure,"  says 
Socrates,  as  his  leg  is  released  from  the  chain,  before  he 
takes  the  poison,  "  and  how  curiously  related  to  pain,  which 
might  be  thought  to  be  the  opposite  of  it ;  for  they  never 
come  to  a  man  together,  and  yet  he  who  pursues  either  of 
them  is  generally  compelled  to  take  the  other.  I  cannot 
help  thinking  that  if  Esop  had  noticed  them,  he  would  have 
made  a  fable  about  God  trying  to  reconcile  their  strife,  and 
when  he  could  not,  he  fastened  their  heads  together ;  and 
this  is  the  reason  that,  when  one  comes,  the  other  follows, 
as  I  find  in  my  own  case  pleasure  comes  following  after 
the  pain  in  my  leg  which  was  caused  by  the  chain." *  We 
need,  then,  to  modify  our  first  unqualified  statement  that 
pleasure  is  the  good,  and  at  least  restrict  it  to  such  pleas- 
ures as  are  regulated  by  wisdom.  There  is  nothing  which 
men  call  desirable  —  money,  position,  beauty  —  which  may 
not,  if  it  fall  into  the  hands  of  a  fool,  bring  about  his  ruin, 
and  so  be  the  greatest  of  evils  to  him  ;  of  what  avail  is  it  to 
possess  a  gold  mine,  if  we  do  not  know  how  to  use  our 
wealth  except  to  bring  harm  on  ourselves  ?  We  are  all  the 
time  misjudging  thus  what  is  best  for  us.  A  pleasure 
close  at  hand  looks  larger  than  far  weightier  ones  in  the 
distance,  and  so,  misled  by  passion,  we  choose  to  our  own 
hurt.  Pleasure,  then,  apart  from  wisdom,  has  no  right  to 
be  exalted  to  the  place  of  the  supremely  good. 

Can  we,  then,  say  that  wisdom  is  the  good,  to  the 
exclusion  of  pleasure  ?  Evidently  not,  if  wisdom  is  to  be 
accompanied  by  positive  pain.  About  a  state  of  wisdom 
that  is  neither  pleasurable  nor  painful,  there  might  be  more 
chance  for  debate.  Such  we  may  deem  the  felicity  of  the 
gods  to  be ;  and  Plato  evidently  feels  a  drawing  toward  such 
an  ideal.  But  he  is  ready  to  admit  that  to  the  natural  man 
the  thought  has  no  attractions,  and  that  wisdom,  divorced 
from  the  feeling  side  of  life,  is  as  little  to  be  set  up  to 

ot  60. 


The  Systematic  Philosophers  71 

strive  after,  as  pleasure  unregulated  by  judgment.  The 
supreme  end,  therefore,  will  combine  the  two.  "  Here  are 
two  fountains  that  are  flowing  at  our  side ;  one,  which  is 
pleasure,  may  be  likened  to  a  fountain  of  honey  ;  the  other, 
which  is  a  sober  draught  in  which  no  wine  mingles,  is  of 
water  pure  and  healthful.  Out  of  these  we  may  seek  to 
make  the  fairest  of  all  possible  mixtures."  1  But  how  is  the 
mixture  to  be  made  ?  Are  we  to  let  in  all  pleasures  on  the 
same  footing?  And  if  not,  on  what  principle  are  we  to 
draw  a  distinction  ? 

Now  it  is  clear  that  pleasure  is  a  word  which  applies  to 
a  very  wide  diversity  of  facts.  "  Do  we  not  say  that  the 
intemperate  has  pleasure,  and  that  the  temperate  has 
pleasure  in  his  very  temperance  ?  that  the  fool  is  pleased 
when  he  is  filled  with  foolish  fancies  and  hopes,  and  that 
the  wise  man  has  pleasure  in  his  wisdom  ?  and  may  not 
he  be  justly  deemed  a  fool  who  says  that  these  pairs  of 
pleasures  are  respectively  alike?"2  Roughly,  then,  we 
may  make  these  two  divisions  —  Plato  adds  still  another  : 
pleasures  that  belong  to  temperance,  and  wisdom,  and 
virtue ;  and  those  so-called  lower,  bodily  pleasures,  which 
appeal  to  the  ordinary  sensualist.  We  feel  instinctively 
that  these  do  not  stand  precisely  on  a  level ;  the  pleasure 
of  the  saint  in  sacrificing  himself  for  others,  is  not  an 
equivalent  of  the  pleasure  of  the  debauchee,  although 
they  may  go  by  the  same  name.  But  how  are  we  to  decide 
between  the  two  ?  Plato  makes  the  suggestion,  which  has 
been  repeated  in  modern  times,  that  we  are  bound  in 
reason  to  accept  here  the  judgment  of  the  expert,  the  man 
who  knows  them  both.  The  sensualist  and  the  fool  know 
nothing  of  the  pleasures  of  self-control  and  of  the  mental 
life,  and  so  their  preference  for  the  bodily  pleasures  stands 
for  nothing.  To  the  philosopher,  however,  the  joys  of  the 
body  are  open  equally  with  the  joys  of  the  mind ;  and  if  he 
chooses  the  latter  rather  than  the  former,  this  means  that 
the  higher  pleasures  are  the  greater. 

iphilebus,  61.  2  Philebus,  12. 


72  A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

And  the  more  we  examine  into  the  nature  of  pleasure, 
the  more  we  see  this  judgment  verified.  How  poor  a 
thing,  indeed,  is  that  which  we  call  pleasure  of  the  senses, 
how  fleeting  in  its  existence,  how  compounded  with  pain. 
In  truth,  there  is  some  reason  to  believe  that  it  is  noth- 
ing at  all  outside  this  relation  in  which  it  stands  to  pain. 
When  our  bodily  functions  have  gone  wrong,  we  feel  a 
relief  when  the  equilibrium  is  restored ;  but  this  relief  is 
only  pleasant,  in  contrast  with  the  pain  which  has  preceded. 
Indeed,  how  can  we  conceive  that  that  has  any  positive 
value,  whose  whole  existence  depends  upon  desires,  and  so 
upon  the  longing  for  something  which  we  lack  ?  If  the 
want  is  removed,  the  pleasure  ceases ;  and  if  it  is  still 
present,  we  are  still  unsatisfied,  and  in  pain.  He,  then, 
who  thinks  to  satisfy  himself  with  a  life  of  bodily  indul- 
gence, is  like  one  who,  as  his  ideal,  should  desire  that  he 
might  be  ever  itching  and  scratching.  The  act  of  scratch- 
ing gives  pleasure,  but  only  as  it  affords  relief  to  a  positive 
evil  behind  it. 

The  wise  man  asks,  therefore,  not  merely  for  pleasures, 
but  for  pleasures  that  are  pure,  i.e.,  unmixed,  so  far  as 
possible,  with  pain.  As  a  little  pure  white  is  whiter  and 
fairer  than  a  great  deal  that  is  mixed,  so  man  would  do 
well  to  seek  in  his  pleasures,  not  quantity,  but  quality. 
The  so-called  greater  pleasures,  by  their  very  vehemence 
and  lack  of  restraint,  entail  upon  us  all  sorts  of  irremedi- 
able ills ;  "  a  sage  whispers  in  my  ear  that  no  pleasure 
except  that  of  the  wise  is  quite  true  and  pure,  all  others 
are  a  shadow  only." 1  If,  then,  neither  pleasure  alone,  nor 
wisdom  alone,  is  to  be  admitted  as  the  final  good,  at  least 
wisdom  is  far  nearer  to  this  than  pleasure.  Pleasure  can 
only  be  admitted  as  it  is  tempered  and  controlled  by  wis- 
dom ;  and  the  highest  pleasure  is  not  of  the  bodily  appe- 
tites, but  of  the  mind.  Those  who  enslave  themselves  to 
the  former  never  know  what  real  existence  means,  nor 
do  they  taste  of  true  and  abiding  pleasure ;  "  like  brute 

1  Republic,  583. 


The  Systematic  Philosophers  73 

animals,  with  their  eyes  down  and  bodies  bent  to  the 
earth,  they  fatten  and  feed  and  breed,  and  in  their  exces- 
sive love  of  these  delights  they  kick  and  butt  at  one 
another  with  horns  and  hoofs  that  are  made  of  iron,  and 
they  kill  one  another  by  reason  of  their  insatiable  lust. 
For  they  fill  themselves  with  that  which  is  not  substantial, 
and  the  part  of  themselves  which  they  fill  is  also  unsub- 
stantial and  incontinent."  1 

But  after  all,  if  we  leave  the  matter  here,  and  agree 
that  the  life  of  philosophy  and  virtue  should  be  chosen  in 
preference  to  the  sensual  life,  because,  after  taking  every- 
thing into  account,  it  turns  out  to  be  the  pleasantest  life, 
we  have  not  reached  the  goal  for  which  Plato  is  striving. 
If  pleasure  continues  to  be  our  final  term,  and  it  is  but 
one  pleasure  balanced  against  another  that  turns  the  scales 
in  the  end,  we  are  still  at  the  mercy  of  a  purely  individual 
taste  in  morality.  The  philosopher  may  prefer  the  joys 
of  the  mind  to  those  of  the  body,  temperate  pleasures  to 
immoderate  indulgence  ;  but  how  if  other  men  have  a 
different  taste  ?  And  they  surely  do  have  a  different 
taste,  or  we  should  all  be  philosophers  and  virtuous.  If, 
then,  they  claim  the  right  to  gratify  this  taste,  who  is  it 
that  shall  say  them  nay  ? 

Now  Plato  evidently  feels,  not  simply  that  the  life  of 
reason  is  on  the  whole  the  most  pleasurable  life,  but  that 
it  is  our  duty  to  prefer  this  life,  whether  in  point  of  fact  we 
do  prefer  it  or  not.  Above  pleasure,  i.e.,  there  is  a  higher 
principle  by  which  pleasures  are  to  be  judged.  One  pleas- 
ure is  purer  and  truer  than  another,  not  merely  in  the  sense 
of  being  greater  in  quantity,  or  of  being  less  intermixed  with 
pain,  but  by  reason  of  an  absolute  qualitative  difference, 
which  carries  with  it  the  obligation  to  prefer  the  one  to  the 
other.  It  is  just  as  in  the  case  of  aesthetic  taste.  The  excel- 
lence of  music  may  be  measured  by  pleasure,  but  the  pleas- 
ure must  not  be  that  of  the  chance  hearer;  "  the  fairest  music 
is  that  which  delights  the  best  and  best  educated,  and  espe- 

1  Republic,  586. 


74          A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

daily  that  which  delights  the  one  man  who  is  preeminent 
in  virtue  and  education."  :  It  is  not,  accordingly,  the  great- 
ness of  the  pleasure  which  constitutes  what  is  best.  It  is 
knowledge  of  the  best,  which  decides  what  judgment  we 
are  to  pass  on  the  various  pleasures.  In  such  a  contest,  the 
numbers  of  the  contestants,  or  the  quantity  or  intensity  of 
their  feelings,  are  as  nothing  when  compared  with  worth. 
Pleasure,  then  "ranks  not  first,  no,  not  even  if  all  the 
oxen  and  horses  and  animals  in  the  world  in  their  pursuit 
of  enjoyment  thus  assert,  and  the  many,  trusting  in  them, 
as  diviners  trust  in  birds,  determine  that  pleasure  makes  up 
the  good  of  life,  and  deem  the  lust  of  animals  to  be  better 
witness  than  the  inspirations  of  divine  philosophy."  2  Ulti- 
mately, we  cannot  express  the  highest  good  in  terms  of  pleas- 
ure at  all,  although  no  doubt  happiness,  or  felicity,  in  some 
sense  enters  into  it.  Pleasure  is  subordinate  to  the  good, 
and,  far  from  forming  the  one  end  of  existence,  is  often  a 
thing  which  we  have  resolutely  to  fight  against  and  subdue. 
But  now,  again,  there  comes  up  the  question  :  How  are 
we  to  define  the  good,  if  not  in  terms  of  pleasure  ?  Men 
say,  e.g.,  that  justice,  which  is  the  typical  virtue,  is  honor- 
able and  good  ;  what  is  their  ground  for  such  a  statement  ? 
In  point  of  fact,  unless  they  simply  take  it  for  granted  on 
the  evidence  of  a  general  moral  agreement  among  man- 
kind, they  always  go  to  work  to  substantiate  and  to 
recommend  it  by  an  appeal  to  consequences,  and  to  self- 
interest.  It  is  assumed  that  a  just  life  is  counselled  by 
the  dictates  of  prudence,  and  an  enlightened  regard  for 
one's  own  welfare.  The  just  man  will  get  along  better, 
get  rich  faster,  attain  more  surely  to  positions  of  honor 
and  trust  in  the  state,  than  the  unjust.  And  if  for  any 
cause  these  results  seem  to  be  delayed,  the  gods  stand 
ready  to  restore  the  balance  by  dispensing  punishments, 
either  in  this  life  or  another.  "  Parents  and  tutors  are 
always  telling  their  sons  and  their  wards  that  they  are  to 
be  just;  but  why?  Not  for  the  sake  of  justice,  but  for 

1  Laws,  658.  a  Philebus,  67. 


The  Systematic  Philosophers  75 

the  sake  of  character  and  reputation,  in  the  hope  of  ob- 
taining some  of  those  offices  and  marriages  and  other 
advantages  that  Glaucon  was  enumerating  as  accruing  to 
the  just  from  a  fair  reputation  ;  and  they  throw  in  the  good 
opinion  of  the  gods,  and  will  tell  you  of  a  shower  of 
blessings  which  the  heavens,  as  they  say,  rain  upon  the 
pious.  And  this  accords  with  the  testimony  of  the  noble 
Hesiod  and  Homer,  the  first  of  whom  says  that  for  the 
just  the  gods  make 

'•'The  oaks  to  bear  acorns  at  their  summit,  and  bees  in  the  middle, 
And  the  sheep  are  bowed  down  with  the  weight  of  their  own  fleeces.' 

And  Homer  has  a  very  similar  strain ;  for  he  speaks  of 
one  whose  fame  is 

" '  As  the  fame  of  some  blameless  king,  who  like  a  God 
Maintains  justice,  for  whom  the  black  earth  brings  forth 
Wheat  and  barley,  whose  trees  are  bowed  with  fruit, 
And  his  sheep  never  fail  to  bear,  and  the  sea  gives  him  fish.' 

Still  grander  are  the  gifts  of  heaven  which  Musaeus  and 
his  son  offer  the  just;  they  take  them  down  into  the  world 
below,  where  they  have  the  saints  feasting  on  couches  with 
crowns  on  their  heads,  and  passing  their  whole  time  in 
drinking ;  their  idea  seems  to  be  that  an  immortality  of 
drunkenness  is  the  highest  meed  of  virtue.  But  about  the 
wicked  there  is  another  strain  ;  they  bury  them  in  a  slough, 
and  make  them  carry  water  in  a  sieve  ;  that  is  their  por- 
tion in  the  world  below,  and  even  while  living  they  bring 
them  to  infamy."  * 

But  now  what  if  one  sees  fit  to  doubt  the  cogency  of 
this  appeal  ?  What  if,  as  he  looks  about  the  world,  he 
sees  the  wicked  triumph  and  the  righteous  man  despised, 
injustice  seated  in  high  places  tyrannizing  over  the  just, 
and  making  their  lot  miserable  ?  What  if  his  reason  tells 
him  that  the  gods  of  whom  the  poets  sing  are  only 
myths,  or,  if  they  exist,  have  no  concern  with  human 
affairs;  and  so  men  can  look  beyond  the  grave,  with 

1  Republic,  363. 


76          A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

no  fear  of  meeting  there  with  any  punishment  for  their 
misdeeds  ?  Is  there  still  any  reason  why  a  man  should 
follow  justice  rather  than  its  opposite?  Doubtless  the 
reputation  for  justice  passes  current  in  the  world  for  a 
certain  value ;  but  if  one  could  keep  the  appearance,  with- 
out being  hampered  with  the  reality,  would  he  not  be  so 
much  better  off  ?  Suppose  we  take  the  most  extreme  case 
imaginable:  an  unjust  man  who  possesses  all  the  things 
that  men  call  blessings,  and  who,  in  spite  of  his  inner' 
corruption,  contrives  that  every  one  should  deem  him 
righteous,  and  passes  to  his  grave  full  of  years  and  honors ; 
and,  over  against  him,  the  just  man,  who  has  no  reward 
whatever  beyond  his  own  consciousness  of  rectitude,  who 
goes  through  life  a  prey  to  every  kind  of  wretchedness  and 
misfortune,  brought  on  him  by  his  very  righteousness,  and 
who,  moreover,  has  the  reputation  everywhere  of  being 
actually  unjust.  Can  we  still  say  in  such  a  case,  that  the 
life  of  the  just  man  alone  is  truly  blessed,  or  that  justice  is 
anything  but  an  evil  ? 

Yes,  says  Plato;  in  spite  of  all,  it  is  only  the  just  life 
that  has  any  real  worth.  The  consequences  in  the  way 
of  pain  or  pleasure  make  not  the  slightest  odds.  The 
good  man  who  suffers  unjustly,  is  still  more  to  be  envied 
than  the  tyrant  who  persecutes  him.  The  wrong-doer  who 
enjoys  his  ill-gotten  gains  unmolested  is  not  the  happier 
for  his  immunity ;  nay,  rather,  he  is  the  more  miserable,  if 
he  be  not  made  to  meet  with  retribution.  This,  then,  is  the 
paradox  which  Plato's  theory  of  the  good  must  establish : 
how  will  he  go  about  it  ? 

2.  The  Psychology  of  the  Soul. — Clearly  it  will  be 
necessary  to  know,  first,  what  it  is  we  mean  by  justice,  and 
the  just  life ;  and  the  necessity  of  answering  this,  leads 
Plato  to  make  the  first  serious  attempt  at  an  adequate  psy- 
chology of  the  human  soul.  For  if  virtue  is  an  attribute 
of  man's  nature,  we  must  be  able  to  define  in  what  this 
nature  consists. 

The  beginnings  of  a  science  of  the  soul,  or  of  psychol- 


The  Systematic  Philosophers  77 

ogy,  had  already  been  made  along  two  separate  lines.  On 
the  metaphysical  side,  there  was  the  primitive  conception 
of  the  soul,  or  ghost,  as  a  sort  of  fine  matter,  which  in  Ho- 
mer may  be  seen  separating  itself  from  the  body  like  a 
smoke  at  death,  and  about  which  there  centred  such  vague 
notions  as  the  Greeks  possessed  of  immortality,  and  future 
retribution  or  rewards.  Closely  connected  with  this  strain, 
is  the  modern  idea  of  a  soul  substance  —  a  something,  pos- 
sessing faculties,  which  underlies  the  conscious  life.  But 
the  soul  in  this  sense  is  of  very  little  account  as  an  expla- 
nation of  the  concrete  processes  that  make  up  our  actual 
consciousness.  Toward  a  psychology  in  this  latter  sense, 
also,  the  Greeks  had  made  some  progress  in  an  unsystem- 
atic way.  It  had  been  a  necessity,  indeed,  of  their  politi- 
cal life.  When  political  affairs  are  carried  on  by  free 
discussion,  and  influence  won,  not  by  arbitrary  force,  but 
by  persuasion,  a  certain  rough  knowledge  of  the  workings 
of  the  human  mind  is  indispensable.  The  successful 
orator  must  to  a  certain  extent  have  classified  men  in 
types,  and  made  himself  familiar  with  the  sort  of  motive 
that  is  likely  to  appeal  to  each ;  and  thus  there  had 
grown  up  a  considerable  body  of  practical  wisdom  that 
dealt  with  psychological  processes.  A  union  of  the  two 
tendencies,  and  the  beginnings  of  a  more  scientific  treat- 
ment of  both,  had  likewise  been  attempted  by  the  philoso- 
phers, but  hitherto  without  any  great  insight  into  the 
actual  complexity  of  the  conscious  life.  They  had  singled 
out  the  more  obvious  fact  of  sensation,  and  assumed,  rather 
than  proved,  that  everything  was  reducible  to  this.  Plato's 
ethical  motive  compels  him  to  dissent  from  this  sensational- 
ism, and,  consequently,  to  undertake  a  more  complete 
analysis  of  the  real  nature  of  the  mind. 

The  method  of  psychology  is  still,  however,  too  little 
developed  to  permit  him  to  go  at  his  task  directly,  by  an 
examination  of  the  individual  consciousness;  and  so  he 
approaches  it  in  a  roundabout  way.  What  we  are  after,  is 
to  get  an  understanding  of  what  virtue,  or  justice,  is,  as 


78          A   Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

applied  to  the  human  soul.  But  the  word  "justice"  is  also 
used  in  an  objective  sense,  in  connection  with  the  life  of 
the  state.  If  we  turn  first,  then,  to  the  study  of  justice 
as  it  is  writ  large  in  the  state,  we  shall  make  our  task  an 
easier  one ;  afterward,  unless  the  two  are  quite  distinct, 
we  can  transfer  our  results  to  the  more  obscure  problem, 
or,  at  any  rate,  can  get  a  clew  for  its  solution.  What,  then, 
is  justice  in  the  state  ? 

Without  going  into  detail,  it  is  enough  to  say  that  Plato 
finds  the  essence  of  justice  in  order.  The  end  of  the  state  is 
the  common  good,  and  injustice  makes  this  unattainable. 
It  sets  men  at  variance  with  their  neighbors,  and  renders 
harmonious  action  for  the  welfare  of  the  state  impossible. 
Justice,  then,  is  the  condition  in  which  each  man  has  his 
own  work  to  do,  and  does  it  without  trying  to  go  outside 
his  proper  sphere,  and  take  on  himself  the  function  which 
some  one  else  is  better  fitted  to  perform ;  it  is  "  minding 
one's  own  business."  Now  in  any  self-sufficing  state,  there 
will  be  three  classes  of  citizens  needed.  First  there  is  the 
working  class,  the  farmers  and  artisans,  on  whose  shoulders 
rests  the  burden  of  providing  the  material  goods  without 
which  life  and  civilization  are  impossible.  The  special 
virtue  which  belongs  to  this  class  is  obedience,  self-control, 
or  temperance.  Above  them  is  the  warrior  class,  on  whom 
devolves  the  defence  of  the  state  against  attack ;  and  their 
chief  virtue  is,  of  course,  courage.  And,  finally,  there  are 
the  rulers,  who  must  be  possessed,  first  of  all,  of  wisdom, 
since  upon  them  rests  the  decision  as  regards  the  policy  of 
the  state.  Justice  will  consist  in  the  proper  coordination 
of  these  separate  classes,  each  with  its  characteristic  virtue. 
When  each  attends  to  its  own  business,  and  does  not  try 
to  step  outside  the  sphere  which  belongs  to  it,  we  have  an 
ordered  and  harmonious  whole,  in  which  all  the  parts  work 
smoothly  together,  not  in  the  interests  of  one  individual,  or 
of  one  class  only,  but  for  the  common  good  of  all  the  citi- 
zens alike.  And  such  a  state  is  what  we  call  a  just  state. 

When  we  take  this  clew,  and  apply  it  to  the  individual 


The  Systematic  Philosophers  79 

soul,  we  find  that  an  analogy  exists.  To  the  lower  class 
there  corresponds,  we  may  say,  that  more  ignoble  part  of 
man's  nature,  the  sensations,  desires,  and  appetites.  These, 
have  in  themselves  no  principle  of  order,  and  are  only  tol- 
erable as  they  are  brought  under  the  sway  of  some  foreign 
and  higher  faculty,  which  shall  rein  them  in,  and  subject 
them  to  the  rule  of  temperance.  This  higher  power  is  the 
mind,  or  reason,  wherein  wisdom  resides,  and  as  it  is  the 
function  of  the  appetites  to  obey,  so  it  belongs  to  the  mind 
by  divine  right  to  rule.  Between  these,  and  corresponding  to 
the  warrior  class  in  the  state,  there  is  a  third  faculty,  which  it 
is  less  easy  to  define.  This  is  the  forceful,  energetic  side 
of  man's  nature,  which  Plato  calls  spirit  (as  we  use  the 
adjective  "  spirited  "),  and  which  we  may  think  of  as  active 
impulse,  or  will.  This  is  not  in  itself  evil  and  ignoble, 
as  are  the  sensations  and  appetites.  It  is  the  basis  of 
certain  very  admirable  virtues  —  the  heroic  virtues,  as 
opposed  to  those  that  are  due  to  wisdom ;  and,  when 
properly  directed,  it  is  the  instrument  of  great  achieve- 
ments. Since,  however,  it  is  in  itself  unintelligent,  and 
liable  to  turn  into  blind  passion,  it  stands  on  a  lower  level 
than  reason ;  it  also  is  the  servant  of  mind,  but  a  servant 
which  is  meant  to  be  used  for  taming  the  unbridled  desires 
of  the  lower  nature,  and  which  thus  is  an  ally  rather  than 
a  hindrance.  The  seat  of  the  lower  faculty  is  in  the  breast 
below  the  midriff ;  that  of  the  mind  is  in  the  head ;  while 
between  them,  just  below  the  neck,  is  the  abode  of  the  spirit, 
which  thus  is  in  a  position  to  help  restrain  the  appetites, 
and  still  be  under  the  control  of  the  mind.  These  three 
faculties  are,  according  to  Plato,  in  a  real  sense  distinct. 
If  man's  nature  were  a  unity,  it  would  be  impossible  to 
explain  how  it  comes  to  pass  that  the  reason  often 
has  to  fight  with  all  its  strength  against  the  sensuous 
desires.  It  is  the  mind  which  constitutes  what  properly 
may  be  called  the  soul;  the  senses,  on  the  other  hand, 
are  mere  functions  of  the  body.  Still  we  are  not  to  think 
of  them  as  entirely  unrelated.  "  We  are  not  Trojan  horses, 


8o          A  Students  History  of  Philosophy 

in  which  are  perched  several  unconnected  senses,"  1but  our 
lower  faculties  are  intended  to  be  subject  to  and  used  in 
the  service  of  the  higher  ;  the  body  is  for  the  sake  of  the 
soul. 

3.  The  Ethical  Ideal.  —  This  relation  Plato  expresses  in 
the  famous  figure  of  the  charioteer  and  the  winged  horses. 
One  of  these  is  of  noble  origin,  and  the  other  of  ignoble  ;  and 
so  naturally  there  is  a  great  deal  of  trouble  in  managing 
them.  The  noble  element  is  striving  continually  to  mount 
to  the  region  of  the  heavens,  where  it  may  look  upon  the 
images  of  divine  beauty  and  wisdom  that  are  proper  to  its 
nature  ;  but  the  body  is  ever  dragging  it  down  to  the  earth 
and  earthly  delights.  Now  just  as,  in  the  state,  justice  con- 
sists in  the  proper  subordination  of  the  different  classes,  so 
the  just  soul  is  one  in  which  a  similar  subordination  of  parts 
exists ;  where  the  charioteer  has  got  control  of  his  steeds,  and 
can  guide  them  to  the  heights  of  heaven ;  where  the  body 
submits  itself  to  the'sway  of  the  soul,  the  beast  in  man  to 
that  in  him  which  is  truly  human.  "  For  the  just  man  does 
not  permit  the  several  elements  within  him  to  meddle  with 
one  another,  but  he  sets  in  order  his  own  inner  life,  and  is 
his  own  master,  and  at  peace  with  himself ;  and  when  he 
has  bound  together  the  three  principles  within  him,  and  is 
no  longer  many,  but  has  become  one  entirely  temperate  and 
perfectly  adjusted  nature,  then  he  will  begin  to  act,  if  he 
has  to  act,  whether  in  a  matter  of  property,  or  in  the  treat- 
ment of  the  body,  or  in  some  affair  of  politics,  or  of  private 
business  ;  in  all  which  cases  he  will  think  and  call  just  and 
good  action,  that  which  preserves  and  cooperates  with  this 
condition,  and  the  knowledge  which  presides  over  this, 
wisdom;  and  unjust  action,  that  which  at  any  time  de- 
stroys this,  and  the  opinion  which  presides  over  unjust 
action,  ignorance."2 

Why,  then,  is  virtue  honorable  and  to  be  desired  ?  Just 
because  man  is  man,  and  not  a  brute  ;  because  he  cannot 
win  any  true  and  lasting  satisfaction,  except  as  he  realizes 

1  Theatctus,  184.  2  Republic,  443. 


The  Systematic  Philosophers  81 

his  own  essential  nature,  that  which  constitutes  his  truest 
and  deepest  manhood.  What  advantage  is  it  to  a  man  if 
he  gain  the  whole  world,  and  lose  his  own  soul  ?  "  How 
would  a  man  profit  if  he  received  gold  and  silver  on  the 
condition  that  he  was  to  enslave  the  noblest  part  of  him 
to  the  worst  ?  Who  can  imagine  that  a  man  who  sold  his 
son  or  daughter  into  slavery  for  money,  especially  if  he 
sold  them  into  the  hands  of  fierce  and  evil  men,  would  be 
the  gainer,  however  large  might  be  the  sum  which  he 
received  ?  and  will  any  one  say  that  he  is  not  a  miserable 
caitiff  who  sells  his  own  divine  being  to  that  which  is  most 
godless  and  detestable,  and  has  no  pity.  Eriphyle  took 
the  necklace  as  the  price  of  her  husband's  life,  but  he  is 
taking  a  bribe  to  compass  a  worse  ruin."  J  Mere  life  is  in 
itself  of  no  account;  it  is  only  the  good  life  which  pos- 
sesses any  worth.  Virtue  is  the  health  of  the  soul ;  with- 
out it  there  is  nothing  but  disease  and  deformity.  "If 
when  the  bodily  constitution  is  gone,  life  is  no  longer  en- 
durable, though  pampered  with  every  sort  of  meats  and 
drinks,  shall  we  be  told  that  We  is  worth  having  when  the 
very  essence  of  the  vital  principle  is  undermined  and  cor- 
rupted, even  though  a  man  be  allowed  to  do  whatever  he 
pleases,  if  at  the  same  time  he  is  forbidden  to  escape  from 
vice  and  injustice,  or  attain  justice  and  virtue?"2  The 
wicked  man  vainly  imagines  that  his  is  the  life  of  liberty. 
It  has  neither  order  nor  law,  and  this  he  deems  joy,  and 
freedom,  and  happiness.  He  does  not  know  that  he  is  in 
reality  a  slave  —  a  slave  to  his  passions,  and  no  longer 
master  of  himself.  In  spite,  then,  of  appearances,  and  all 
that  men  may  say,  it  is  only  the  virtuous  life  that  brings 
true  happiness.  The  wicked  man  may  start  out  well,  but 
he  never  reaches  the  goal ;  only  the  just  can  endure  to  the 
end,  and  receive  the  crown  of  victory.  Such  is  Plato's 
ideal  of  character,  the  statement  of  which  may  fittingly  be 
brought  to  a  close  with  the  beautiful  prayer  of  Socrates  at 
the  conclusion  of  the  Phadrus:  — 

Republic,  589.  Republic,  445. 

G 


82          A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

"Beloved  Pan,  and  all  ye  gods  who  haunt  this  place, 
give  me  beauty  in  the  inward  soul,  and  may  the  outward 
and  inward  man  be  at  one.  May  I  reckon  the  wise  to  be 
the  wealthy,  and  may  I  have  such  a  quantity  of  gold  as 
none  but  the  temperate  can  carry.  Anything  more?  That 
prayer,  I  think,  is  enough  for  me." 

2.   Social  Philosophy 

I.  It  is  clear  that  in  such  an  ideal,  individualism  and 
scepticism  in  the  moral  life  have  been  transcended.  In- 
deed, they  are  transcended  so  completely,  that  we  run  the 
risk  of  losing  the  element  of  value  which  they  contain. 
The  individuality  of  a  man,  in  the  interpretation  which 
Plato  goes  on  to  give,  has  all  the  time  a  tendency  to  be 
thrust  into  the  background  by  that  universal,  rational 
element,  which  he  has  in  common  with  other  men,  and 
which  makes  him  first  of  all  a  member  of  the  state,  and  a 
part  of  the  universe.  It  is,  indeed,  no  longer  the  purely 
traditional  order  of  society  which  Plato  exalts  to  a  position 
as  arbiter  of  man's  life.  His  Republic  is  an  ideal  fashioned 
by  reason,  and  differing  widely  in  many  respects  from  any- 
thing that  history  has  to  show.  But  when  the  ideal  has 
once  been  set  up,  it  is  to  rule  with  a  rod  of  iron.  Instead 
of  the  conception  of  man  as  a  mere  unit  complete  in 
himself,  we  have  what  appears  sometimes  to  be  at  the  very 
opposite  extreme.  Man  has  no  real  life  at  all  apart  from 
his  direct  participation  in  the  life  of  society  and  the  world ; 
and,  therefore,  it  is  the  state  which  logically  is  supreme, 
rather  than  the  individual.  Why  should  man  prate  of  his 
rights  and  his  liberty  ?  the  right  to  forfeit  his  birthright  as 
a  man,  the  liberty  to  do  things  to  his  own  hurt.  Since, 
then,  men  cannot  be  trusted  always  to  know  their  true 
rational  interests,  and  to  prefer  them  to  those  which  are 
more  specious  and  evanescent,  the  state  must  have  the 
authority  to  compel  them  to  the  ways  of  righteousness,  to 
weed  out  all  tendencies  and  desires  that  are  merely  private, 


The  Systematic  Philosophers  83 

and  to  enforce  the  interests  of  the  whole,  as  against  those 
of  the  individual. 

All  this  goes  to  intensify  his  natural  aristocratic  dis- 
like of  democracy.  Of  all  the  forms  of  government  that 
are  not  entire  perversions,  a  democracy  is  the  worst. 
Its  liberty  is  only  license.  "  No  one  who  does  not  know 
would  believe,"  he  says,  with  a  touch  of  satire,  "  how 
much  greater  is  the  liberty  which  animals  who  are  under 
the  dominion  of  men  have  in  a  democracy  than  in  any 
other  state.  For  truly  the  dogs,  as  the  proverb  says,  are 
as  good  as  their  she-mistresses,  and  the  horses  and  asses 
come  to  have  a  way  of  marching  along  with  all  the  rights 
and  dignities  of  free  men,  and  they  will  run  at  anybody 
whom  they  meet  in  the  street,  if  he  does  not  get  out  of 
their  way,  and  everything  is  just  ready  to  burst  with  lib- 
erty."1 With  this  talk  of  liberty  and  equality,  Plato  has 
no  sympathy.  Men  are  not  equal,  and  it  is  but  a  perver- 
sion that  the  worst  should  rule  the  best.  The  mass  of 
men  have  not  the  brains  to  know  what  is  for  their  own 
good,  and  inevitably  they  will  make  shipwreck  of  the 
attempt.  Accordingly,  they  will  be  vastly  better  off  if 
they  cease  bothering  their  heads  about  affairs  of  state,  and 
turn  over  the  conduct  of  their  lives  to  those  whose  wisdom 
gives  them  the  right  to  rule  —  the  philosopher,  or  the 
"  hero  "  of  Carlyle.  Then  only,  with  a  philosopher-king 
who  knows  what  is  best,  and  a  state  that  will  submit 
itself  to  wise  direction,  shall  we  have  a  remedy  for  the  ills 
of  the  world,  and  a  chance  for  man  to  realize  his  highest 
life. 

The  ideal  of  such  a  state  Plato  sets  forth  in  the  Republic, 
and  also,  in  a  less  Utopian  form,  in  the  Laws.  Based  as 
it  is  upon  the  thought  that  the  claims  of  the  state  come 
first,  and  that  the  mass  of  men  are  not  of  themselves  ca- 
pable of  living  the  true  life  of  reason,  Plato's  Republic 
represents  the  carrying  out,  in  the  strictest  and  most  logi- 
cal way,  of  paternalism  in  government.  Everything  must 

1  Republic,  563. 


84  A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

bow  to  the  supposed  interests  of  the  whole.  We  have 
already  seen  that  the  citizens  are  to  form  three  classes,  or 
castes :  the  artisans,  on  whom  the  material  foundations  of 
the  state  rest;  the  warriors  or  guardians;  and  the  rulers. 
These  castes  are  not,  however,  entirely  hard  and  fast; 
according  to  the  promise  which  children  show,  they  are  to 
be  advanced  or  degraded  with  reference  to  the  caste  in 
which  they  happen  to  be  born.  The  lower  class  receives 
least  attention  ;  its  duty  is  to  obey  the  rulers  blindly, 
and  perform  its  work  faithfully.  No  free  citizen  is 
allowed  to  earn  his  living  by  an  illiberal  trade.  The  in- 
dustrial life  is  for  Plato,  as  for  ancient  thought  generally, 
a  degradation,  and  renders  attention  to  the  true  art  of 
living  impossible ;  and,  consequently,  society  has  neces- 
sarily to  be  built  up  on  the  basis  of  a  large  class  of  men, 
who  fail  to  share  in  its  spiritual  benefits. 

To  produce  the  right  kind  of  citizen,  there  is  devised  a 
most  elaborate  social  machinery.  In  the  first  place,  chil- 
dren are  to  be  examined  at  birth,  and  those  who  do  not  ap- 
pear physically  strong  and  perfect  are  to  be  put  out  of  the 
way,  with  due  regard  to  decency  and  order.  The  survivors 
are  then  to  be  subjected  to  the  most  rigid  system  of  state 
education,  whose  provisions,  when  once  established,  are  not 
to  be  altered  by  a  hair.  Even  the  playthings  for  children 
are  carefully  selected,  and  no  innovations  are  to  be  allowed 
under  severe  penalties  ;  for  if  change  once  begins  even 
in  small  things,  no  one  can  set  limits  to  it.  The  same 
paternal  supervision  follows  the  citizen  throughout  his  life  ; 
for  it  is  of  no  avail,  so  Plato  thinks,  to  make  laws  concern- 
ing the  public  relations  of  men,  unless  we  regulate  their  pri- 
vate life  also.  In  the  case  of  the  warrior  class,  especially, 
extraordinary  precautions  are  to  be  taken.  "  In  the  first 
place,  none  of  them  should  have  any  property  beyond 
what  is  absolutely  necessary;  neither  should  they  have 
a  private  house,  with  bars  and  bolts,  closed  against  any 
one  who  has  a  mind  to  enter ;  their  provisions  should  be 
only  such  as  are  required  by  trained  warriors,  who  are 


The  Systematic  Philosophers  85 

men  of  temperance  and  courage;  their  agreement  is  to 
receive  from  the  citizens  a  fixed  rate  of  pay,  enough  to 
meet  the  expenses  of  the  year  and  no  more,  and  they  will 
have  common  meals  and  live  together,  like  soldiers  in  a 
camp.  Gold  and  silver  we  will  tell  them  that  they  have 
from  God  ;  the  diviner  metal  is  within  them,  and  they  have 
therefore  no  need  of  that  earthly  dross  which  passes  under 
the  name  of  gold,  and  ought  not  to  pollute  the  divine  by 
earthly  intermixture,  for  that  commoner  metal  has  been 
the  source  of  many  unholy  deeds ;  but  their  own  is  unde- 
filed.  And  they  alone  of  all  the  citizens  may  not  touch 
or  handle  silver  or  gold,  or  be  under  the  same  roof  with 
them,  or  wear  them,  or  drink  from  them.  And  this  will 
be  their  salvation,  and  the  salvation  of  the  State."  *  Ideally, 
even  wives  should  be  held  in  common,  and  children  should 
be  brought  up  by  the  state,  and  kept  in  ignorance  of  their 
real  parents.  By  doing  away  with  private  interests  in  this 
wholesale  fashion,  and  by  compelling  men  to  have  their 
pleasures  and  pains  in  common,  Plato  hoped  to  eliminate 
those  occasions  of  discord,  which  grow  out  of  separate  and 
clashing  aims  among  the  citizens.  The  history  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  priesthood  shows  how  powerful  an  instru- 
ment it  is  actually  possible  to  create  in  this  way. 

So  in  every  direction,  the  state  was  to  be  guarded  carefully 
from  all  influences  that  might  seem  in  any  way  harmful. 
It  was  to  be  isolated  as  much  as  possible  from  foreign  trade 
and  foreign  intercourse.  Amusements  and  the  arts  were  to 
be  under  strict  supervision.  All  music  that  was  emotional 
and  exciting  in  its  nature  was  to  be  prohibited,  and  the  theatre 
to  be  put  under  the  ban.  So  in  the  case  of  poetry,  a  strict 
censorship  was  to  be  preserved,  and  everything  whose 
moral  tendency  was  not  immediate  and  apparent,  was  ruth- 
lessly to  be  rejected,  no  matter  what  its  artistic  excellence. 
The  poet  was  to  be  confined  to  singing  the  praises  of  vir- 
tue, and  hymns  to  the  gods.  The  suggestion  that  the 
way  of  vice  might  have  its  attractions,  or  that  virtue  some- 

1  Republic,  416. 


86          A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

times  proves  a  thorny  road,  was  not  to  be  tolerated.  And 
of  course  religion  is,  likewise,  absolutely  under  the  control 
of  the  state. 

3.    The  Nature  of  Knowledge.     The  Theory  of  Ideas 

I.  The  World  of  Ideas.  —  In  the  conception  of  human 
life  which  has  thus  been  briefly  sketched,  we  may  notice, 
once  more,  two  aspects  in  particular,  that  will  serve  as  a 
transition  to  Plato's  more  general  theory  of  knowledge  and 
of  reality.  Plato  has  been  concerned  throughout  with  the 
search  for  ends,  or  ideals ;  and  this  same  thing  it  is  which 
continues  to  guide  him  when  he  comes  to  his  wider  and 
more  fundamental  problems.  The  real  continues  always 
for  him  to  be  in  terms  of  the  Good.  We  know  reality  in 
its  essence  only  as  we  grasp  its  meaning ;  Ethics  is  the 
starting-point  of  Metaphysics,  and  suggests  the  form  which 
a  final  philosophy  is  to  take  on. 

But  now,  furthermore,  the  ideal  can  be  regarded  as  no 
fleeting,  shifting  matter  of  individual  preference.  By  the 
very  nature  of  an  ideal,  it  seems  to  claim  universality, 
coercive  validity.  The  entire  search  has  been  for  that 
which  shall  rise  above  the  world  of  particularity  and  rela- 
tivity, for  something  which  is  authoritative  and  abiding. 
How,  then,  are  we  to  make  the  transition  ?  How,  in  the 
world  of  change  in  which  we  are  immersed,  are  we  to 
grasp  the  truth  that  is  eternal  ?  To  answer  this  question, 
we  need  to  turn  to  Plato's  theory  of  knowledge. 

The  starting-point  of  the  theory,  as  has  been  said,  lay 
in  Plato's  certainty  that  truth,  particularly  ethical  truth, 
exists,  and  that  truth  is  steadfast  and  abiding.  There  were 
theories  current  in  Plato's  day  which  denied  this.  Such 
theories,  which  usually  related  themselves  more  or  less 
closely  to  the  "  flowing  philosophy  "  of  Heracleitus,  empha- 
sized the  thoroughgoing  relativity  of  knowledge,  to  the 
exclusion  of  any  absolute  standard  of  truth.  Such  a 
theory  Plato  connects,  probably  without  historical  warrant, 
with  the  name  of  the  Sophist  Protagoras.  There  was  a 


The  Systematic  Philosophers  87 

famous  utterance  of  Protagoras',  that  "  man  is  the  measure 
of  all  things."  This  Plato  interprets  in  the  sense  that  each 
individual  man  is  the  measure  of  all  things,  that  that  is  true 
for  each  man  which  seems  to  him  to  be  true,  and  that  for 
the  opinions  of  different  men  there  is  no  common  meas- 
ure. This  pretty  certainly  was  not  Protagoras'  meaning ; 
but,  as  has  been  said,  some  of  Plato's  contemporaries, 
and  particularly  Aristippus  the  Cyrenaic,  had  been  led  to 
just  this  position  as  the  outcome  of  an  attempt  to  reduce 
all  knowledge  to  the  changing  and  subjective  facts  of 
sense  perception. 

Now  to  such  a  philosophy  Plato  was  unalterably  op- 
posed. In  denying  the  existence  of  absolute  truth,  the 
theory  is  suicidal.  Let  us  retort  upon  Protagoras  with 
the  argument  ad  hominem.  "  If  truth  is  only  sensation, 
and  one  man's  discernment  is  as  good  as  another's,  and 
each  man  is  to  be  the  sole  judge,  and  everything  that  he 
judges  is  true  and  right,  why  should  Protagoras  be  pre- 
ferred to  the  place  of  wisdom  and  instruction,  and  deserve 
to  be  well  paid,  and  we  poor  ignoramuses  have  to  go  to 
him,  if  each  one  is  the  measure  of  his  own  wisdom  ?  " 1 
Why  should  the  "  truth  "  that  all  truth  is  relative,  be  more 
true  than  its  opposite  ?  It  is  true  to  the  man  who  thinks 
it  so,  and  that  is  all.  "The  best  of  the  joke  is,  that  Pro- 
tagoras acknowledges  the  truth  of  their  opinion  who  be- 
lieve his  opinion  to  be  false;  for  in  admitting  that  the 
opinions  of  all  men  are  true,  in  effect  he  grants  that  the 
opinion  of  his  opponents  is  true."2  We  cannot,  then,  give 
up  our  belief  in  knowledge ;  even  the  sceptic  assumes 
some  truth  —  the  truth  of  his  scepticism.  A  consistent 
scepticism  would  have  to  be  completely  speechless.  And 
knowledge  implies  fixity,  an  abiding  nature  somewhere ; 
for  it  would  no  longer  be  knowledge,  if  a  transition  were 
going  on  in  it  continually. 

Now  already  Socrates  had  pointed  out  where  this  fixity 
is  to  be  found.  It  is  present,  not  in  the  flux  of  sense  ex- 

1  Theatctus,  161.  *Ibid.,  171. 


88          A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

perience,  but  in  thought,  or  the  concept.  Philosophy,  ac- 
cording to  Socrates,  has  to  do  with  the  common  nature 
which  makes  a  thing  what  it  is;  with  those  essential 
characteristics  which  are  present  in  individuals,  and  which, 
when  detected,  go  to  form  what  we  call  the  concept,  or 
general  idea.  If  we  want  to  know  what  a  man  is,  or  what 
is  virtue,  it  is  not  enough  to  name  this  or  that  man,  or  to 
enumerate  a  string  of  virtues  ;  different  men  are  not  dif- 
ferent in  kind,  but  each  is  a  man  by  reason  of  certain  char- 
acteristics which  belong  to  man  as  such. 

Such  fixed  and  universal  ideas,  then,  constitute  the 
"  truth  "  of  which  the  scientist  and  the  philosopher  are  in 
search.  But,  now,  if  they  are  true,  may  we  not  naturally 
ask  —  true  of  what?  Where  is  the  object  to  which  they 
refer,  of  which  they  are  valid  ?  In  the  sense  world  we 
can  find  no  such  object ;  there  everything  is  ephemeral, 
in  constant  process  of  change.  Is,  then,  the  Idea  a  mere 
fiction  ?  Does  it  point  to  nothing  in  the  world  of  reality  ? 
This  would  be  intolerable.  Are  there  to  be  real  objects 
corresponding  to  our  sensations,  and  nothing  real  to  cor- 
respond to  thought,  whose  dignity  is  so  much  greater,  and 
to  which  we  bring  our  sense  perception  to  be  tested  ?  No, 
over  against  the  world  of  perception,  with  its  change  and 
unrest,  there  must  be  another  realm.  This  is  the  realm  of 
Ideas,  of  concepts,  of  true  and  abiding  existence.  Accord- 
ingly, instead  of  the  one  world  of  previous  philosophers, 
the  universe  has  fallen  apart  into  two  sections.  On  the  one 
hand  is  the  world  of  individual  things,  which  we  see  when 
we  open  our  eyes ;  and  this  is  given  over  without  reserve 
to  change,  multiplicity,  relativity,  the  Heracleitean  flux. 
To  this  sense  world  belongs  all  the  uncertainty  that  the 
individualist  and  the  sensationalist  had  found  in  knowl- 
edge. It  is  in  very  deed  a  perpetual  process  of  change, 
as  Heracleitus  had  said,  and  there  is  no  such  thing  as 
absolute  truth  or  fact  in  its  shifting  play  of  appearances. 
It  will  not  stand  still  long  enough  to  give  rise  to  the  possi- 
bility of  an  authoritative  standard.  But  for  just  this  reason 


The  Systematic  Philosophers  89 

it  can  be  only  a  phenomenal  world,  and  not  the  world  of  true 
being.  This  latter  is  the  world  of  the  Idea  —  absolute,  abid- 
ing, without  variableness  or  shadow  of  turning,  which  sensa- 
tion never  can  attain  to,  but  thought  alone.  "  Over  against 
that  world  of  flux, 

"  '  Where  nothing  is,  but  all  things  seem,' 

it  is  the  vocation  of  Plato  to  set  up  a  standard  of  unchange- 
able reality,  which  in  its  highest  theoretic  development  be- 
comes the  world  of  eternal  and  immutable  ideas,  indefectible 
outlines  of  thought,  yet  also  the  veritable  things  of  experi- 
ence ;  the  perfect  Justice,  e.g.,  which  if  even  the  gods  mis- 
take it  for  perfect  injustice,  is  not  moved  out  of  its  place ; 
the  beauty  which  is  the  same  yesterday,  to-day,  and  for- 
ever. In  such  ideas,  or  ideals,  eternal  as  participating  in 
the  essential  character  of  the  facts  they  represent  to  us, 
we  come  in  contact,  as  he  supposes,  with  the  insoluble, 
immovable  granite,  beneath  and  amid  the  wasting  torrent 
of  mere  phenomena." 1  The  ordinary  man  may  be  con- 
tent to  dwell  in  this  lower  world,  and  put  up  with  mere 
empirical  knowledge  of  things  as  they  come  to  him  in  their 
particularity.  He  is  ready  to  stop  with  virtuous  actions, 
and  beautiful  objects,  and  not  bother  his  head  about  Virtue 
or  Beauty  as  such.  But  not  so  the  philosopher.  "  He  who 
has  learned  to  see  the  beautiful  in  due  order  and  succes- 
sion, when  he  comes  toward  the  end  will  suddenly  perceive 
a  nature  of  wondrous  beauty,  not  growing  and  decaying, 
or  waxing  and  waning,  not  fair  in  one  point  of  view  and 
foul  in  another,  or  in  the  likeness  of  a  face,  or  hands,  or 
any  other  part  of  the  bodily  frame,  or  in  any  form  of  speech 
or  knowledge,  nor  existing  in  any  other  being ;  but  Beauty 
only,  absolute,  separate,  simple,  everlasting,  which  with- 
out diminution  and  without  increase,  or  any  change,  is  im- 
parted to  the  ever  growing  and  perishing  beauties  of  all 
other  things.  He  only  uses  the  beauties  of  earth  as  steps 

1  Pater,  Plato  and  Platonism, 


90          A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

along  which  he  mounts  upward  for  the  sake  of  that  other 
Beauty,  going  from  one  to  two,  and  from  two  to  all  fair 
forms,  and  from  fair  forms  to  fair  actions,  and  from  fair 
actions  to  fair  notions,  until  from  fair  notions  he  arrives  at 
the  notion  of  absolute  Beauty,  and  at  last  knows  what  the 
essence  of  Beauty  is."1 

In  knowing,  then,  this  supersensible  world,  we  are  in  pos- 
session of  ideas  that  go  far  beyond  the  mere  data  of  sense 
experience  —  ideas  that  are  perfect  and  immutable.  The 
very  fact  that  we  can  judge  particular  things  to  be  imper- 
fect, shows  that  we  already  have  a  standard  with  reference 
to  which  they  fall  short.  Take  an  instance  from  geometry  : 
We  never  have  seen  a  perfect  circle,  and  yet  we  know  that 
any  given  circle  comes  short  of  perfection ;  how  can  we 
know  this,  except  as  we  can  compare  the  circle  which  we 
see,  with  the  idea,  or  ideal,  of  the  circle  which  it  calls  up, 
and  which  we  never  can  see  with  the  bodily  eye  ?  If,  then, 
such  ideas  are  not  revealed  to  us  through  the  channels  of 
sense,  how  do  we  attain  them  ?  The  answer  which  Plato 
gives  takes  the  form  of  the  famous  doctrine  of  thought  as 
recollection.  Since  the  idea  is  nothing  that  can  come  origi- 
nally from  sense  experience,  and  since,  again,  it  evidently 
has  not  been  consciously  present  in  our  minds  from  birth, 
we  can  only  conjecture  that  thought  represents  the  traces 
left  upon  our  souls  by  a  previous  existence.  Before  that 
union  with  the  body  which  has  immersed  it  in  the  world  of 
sense,  the  soul  lived  in  the  realm  of  true  reality,  and  beheld 
with  unveiled  eyes  the  changeless  Ideas  which  constitute 
this  realm.  Such  a  former  vision  may  even  now  on  occa- 
sion be  restored ;  and  the  process  of  recalling  it  to  con- 
sciousness, is  what  we  know  as  thought.  Perhaps  Plato 
does  not  intend  his  statements  here  to  be  taken  too  literally. 
But  what  is  thus  expressed  in  more  or  less  mythical  form 
adumbrates,  at  any  rate,  an  important  truth,  which  is  taken 
up  again  and  again  in  later  philosophy.  Somehow  or  other, 
the  mind  by  which  we  think  the  universe  is  the  source  of 

1  Symposium,  21 1. 


The  Systematic  Philosophers  91 

an  interpretation  of  things  which  cannot  be  reduced  to  any 
mere  collection  of  sense  particulars. 

2.  Interpretation  of  the  Theory.  —  What,  now,  are  we  to 
think  of  the  stand  which  Plato  has  taken  ?  Can  we  actually 
suppose  that  man  is  more  real  than  men,  beauty  than  beauti- 
ful objects,  equality  than  things  which  are  equal  ?  A  man  I 
can  see,  and  hear,  and  touch  ;  but  what  is  man  in  the  ab- 
stract ?  What  can  beauty  be  like  which  is  not  embodied  in 
some  beautiful  form,  but  which  is  just  beauty,  and  nothing 
else  ?  Well,  Plato  says,  people  find  a  difficulty  in  this, 
simply  because  they  are  so  enamoured  of  the  senses,  and 
because  they  have  not  trained  the  only  organ  by  which  the 
Idea  is  to  be  attained — the  organ  of  conceptual  thought. 
For  the  outer  barbarians,  who  "  believe  in  nothing  but  what 
they  can  hold  fast  in  their  hands,"  the  Idea  may  be  unreal, 
but  this  is  only  because  there  is  lacking  in  them  the  sense 
through  which  it  is  perceived  ;  for  the  philosopher,  the 
object  of  thought  is  the  most  real  thing  in  the  world. 

But  still,  from  our  modern  standpoint,  we  are  compelled 
to  ask  again  :  How  can  that  exist  which  is  nothing  in  par- 
ticular, but  only  something  in  general  ?  Is  the  concept 
"man"  anything  more  than  the  abstraction  of  a  certain 
number  of  characteristics,  which  we  have  seen  in  individual 
men,  and  which  now  are  held  together  in  the  mind  ?  The 
thought  of  man  is  real,  indeed,  as  my  thought ;  but  has  it 
any  other  reality,  except  as  we  go  back  again  to  the  par- 
ticular men  from  whom  the  qualities  were  abstracted  ? 
How,  indeed,  are  we  possibly  to  conceive  of  that  as  having 
any  actual  existence,  which  is  neither  an  inch,  nor  a  foot, 
nor  a  yard  long,  nor  possessed  of  any  definite  length,  but 
which  is  only  length  in  general  ?  To  us  there  seems  to  be 
but  little  meaning  to  the  statement  that  it  is  beauty  which 
makes  things  beautiful,  or  duality  which  makes  them  two 
in  number.  What  is  this  beauty  or  duality,  apart  from  the 
concrete  individual  objects  themselves  ? 

But  now,  on  the  other  hand,  when  we  try  to  go  a  little 
deeper,  it  seems  clear  that  Plato's  problem  was  by  no  means 


92          A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

a  wholly  artificial  one.  Do  we  not  constantly  assume  that, 
through  the  thought  which  transcends  particular  objects,  we 
are  getting  nearer  to  the  truth  ?  For  whom  is  the  tree  or  the 
flower  more  real,  the  child  who  sees  it  barely  in  its  separate- 
ness  in  space,  or  the  naturalist,  to  whom  it  epitomizes  the 
history  of  ages  dead  and  gone,  and  sends  forth  lines  of 
relationship  to  all  living  things  ?  And  yet  it  is  in 
terms  of  "  ideas  "  that  this  wider  knowledge  is  embodied. 
We  are  stating  more  and  more  adequately  what  "kind"  of 
a  thing  it  is,  interpreting  it  in  terms  of  general  notions. 
That  our  ideas  are  valid  of  reality,  we  cannot  possibly  get 
away  from,  without  destroying  the  worth  of  thinking  alto- 
gether. And  if  valid  of  the  real  world,  must  they  not  some- 
how be  represented  in  that  world  ?  We  come  closer  to  the 
real  force  of  Plato's  thought,  if,  instead  of  such  a  concept 
as  "  man,"  we  substitute  the  notion  of  a  scientific  law. 
Put  in  such  terms,  we  find  ourselves  even  at  the  present 
day  led  naturally  to  think  of  the  "idea"  as  something  real, 
something  actually  belonging  to  the  world  beyond  us,  and 
not  a  mere  fact  in  our  private  minds.  The  law  of  gravita- 
tion is  a  "  universal,"  an  unchanging  truth,  which  we  distin- 
guish from  the  particular  events  which  are  the  expression 
of  the  law.  And  yet  we  hardly  feel  satisfied,  ordinarily, 
to  suppose  that  the  law  has  no  reality  beyond  our  mere 
faculty  of  generalization,  that  it  represents  nothing  in  the 
outer  world  over  and  above  the  separate  events  themselves. 

Or,  again,  we  may  turn  back  to  the  aspect  of  Plato's  prob- 
lem, to  which  reference  has  already  been  made.  Plato's  Ideas 
are  also  "  ideals."  Now  for  our  ideals,  too,  we  tend  to  claim 
objective  validity,  and  not  a  mere  particular  and  subjective 
existence.  Ideals  are,  or  pretend  to  be,  universal,  superior 
to  bare  phenomenal  fact,  exercising  sovereignty  over  our 
present  and  fleeting  desires.  And  unless  we  can  find  some 
place  for  them  in  reality,  their  whole  function  would  seem 
to  fall  away. 

We  may,  then,  interpret,  somewhat  broadly,  Plato's  em- 
phasis on  the  world  of  universals,  of  Ideas,  as  fundament- 


The  Systematic  Philosophers  93 

ally  the  demand  for  an  ethically  significant  world,  as 
against  a  reduction  of  reality  to  nothing  save  a  string  of 
particular  events.  Is  the  universe  no  more  than  a  col- 
lection of  individual  things,  in  which  alone  reality  inheres ; 
or  do  these  things  depend  on  the  more  ultimate  reality  of 
the  one  world  to  which  they  belong,  and  which  has  its 
final  interpretation  in  ethical  terms  ?  Is  the  world  a  mere 
world  of  particular  facts,  or  is  it  a  whole  of  meaning,  by 
reference  to  which  the  particular  facts  get  their  significance? 
In  opposition  to  the  individualism  of  the  later  Sophists,  and 
the  materialistic  atomism  of  the  scientific  philosophers, 
Plato  asserts,  with  all  the  strength  of  a  profound  conviction, 
that  the  truth  of  the  world  lies  in  its  universal  and  abiding 
significance,  —  in  the  Idea,  or  the  Good;  and  that  no 
particular  thing  retains  for  a  moment  any  validity  apart 
from  this  all-embracing  whole.  "  The  ruler  of  the  universe 
has  ordered  all  things  with  a  view  to  the  preservation  and 
perfection  of  the  whole,  and  each  part  has  an  appointed 
state  of  action  and  passion.  And  one  of  the  portions  of 
the  universe  is  thine  own,  stubborn  man,  which,  however 
little,  has  the  whole  in  view  ;  and  you  do  not  seem  to  be 
aware  that  this  and  every  other  creation  is  for  the  sake  of 
the  whole,  and  in  order  that  the  life  of  the  whole  may  be 
blessed,  and  that  you  are  created  for  the  sake  of  the  whole, 
and  not  the  whole  for  the  sake  of  you."  J  In  its  highest 
aspect,  the  world  is  not  mechanical,  but  ideological.  Every- 
thing comes  within  the  compass  of  an  end  or  meaning, 
which  is  at  once  the  supreme  fact,  and  the  highest  good, 
and  perfect  beauty. 

3.  Difficulties  of  the  Theory.  —  But  now  in  the  form  in 
which  Plato  has  cast  his  theory,  there  are  serious  difficulties. 
And  the  great  difficulty  is  this,  that,  as  he  conceives  it, 
there  is  altogether  too  sharp  a  distinction  between  the 
Ideas,  and  the  particular  facts.  Plato's  tendency  has  been 
to  think  that  within  the  same  world  there  is  no  way  of  rec- 
onciling the  One  and  the  Many,  Permanence  and  Change, 

1  Laws,  903. 


94  A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

Sameness  and  Otherness.  And  the  result  is,  that  in  at- 
tributing to  the  Ideas  only  the  first  terms  of  these  pairs  of 
correlates,  he  has  to  thrust  into  the  outer  darkness  all  the 
concrete  matter  that  makes  up  the  stuff  of  experience  as 
we  actually  know  it.  But  this  is  suicidal.  We  demand, 
for  knowledge,  that  which  will  explain  things,  not  that 
which  leaves  them  inexplicable.  And  the  more  the  lower 
world  is  cut  off  from  the  Ideas,  the  more  impossible  it  is 
to  understand  even  its  partial  and  derivative  reality.  The 
Good,  instead  of  being  the  concrete  whole  of  life,  which  trans- 
forms all  the  desires  and  facts  of  sense  by  bringing  them  into 
connection  with  a  worthy  end  —  this  is  what  Plato  is  feel- 
ing after  —  is,  instead,  hardly  more  than  a  name,  which  in 
the  nature  of  the  case  he  finds  it  impossible  to  define,  and 
fill  out  with  a  real  content.  Such  a  content  could  only  come 
from  the  particular  facts  which  he  has  rejected.  In 
the  human  soul,  again,  a  parallel  division  is  made  neces- 
sary between  the  organs  through  which  these  different 
realms  are  apprehended,  —  between  thought,  i.e.,  which 
is  the  soul  proper,  and  the  senses,  which  are  the  organs 
of  the  body. 

Accordingly,  there  appears  in  man's  nature  a  cleft,  which 
to  all  appearance  is  impassable.  Not  only  when  man  turns 
to  true  knowledge,  does  he  get  no  help  from  the  senses ; 
they  are  an  actual  hindrance  to  him.  To  behold  the  Idea, 
he  must  get  rid,  so  far  as  he  can,  of  eyes,  and  ears,  and  the 
whole  body,  and  rely  solely  upon  the  pure  light  of  the  mind. 
To  the  body  are  due  only  our  aberrations  and  failures  to  see 
the  truth :  "  it  draws  the  soul  down  into  the  region  of  the 
changeable,  where  it  wanders  and  is  confused :  the  world 
spins  around  her,  and  she  is  like  a  drunkard  when  under 
their  influence."  1  "For  the  body  is  a  source  of  endless 
trouble  to  us  by  reason  of  the  mere  requirement  of  food,  and 
also  is  liable  to  diseases  which  overtake  and  impede  us  in 
the  search  after  truth,  and,  by  filling  us  so  full  of  loves,  and 
fears,  and  fancies,  and  idols,  and  every  sort  of  folly,  pre- 

1  Phctdo,  79. 


The  Systematic  Philosopliers  95 

vents  our  ever  having,  as  people  say,  so  much  as  a  thought. 
For  whence  come  wars,  and  fightings,  and  factions  ?  whence 
but  from  the  body,  and  the  lust  of  the  body?"1  We 
are  shut  up  behind  the  bars  of  a  prison,  whence  we  can 
only  catch  an  occasional  glimpse  of  the  fair  sights  which 
our  soul  desires.  This  conception  of  the  sense  world  as 
a  mere  appearance,  which  only  serves  to  veil  the  reality 
behind  it,  Plato  expresses  in  the  famous  figure  of  the 
Cave: — 

"  After  this,  I  said,  imagine  the  enlightenment  or  igno- 
rance of  our  nature  in  a  figure :  Behold !  human  beings 
living  in  a  sort  of  underground  den,  which  has  a  mouth 
open  toward  the  light,  and  reaching  all  across  the  den ; 
they  have  been  here  from  their  childhood,  and  have  their 
legs  and  necks  chained  so  that  they  can  only  see  before 
them.  At  a  distance  above  and  behind  them  the  light  of  a 
fire  is  blazing,  and  between  the  fire  and  the  prisoners  there 
is  a  raised  way;  and  you  will  see,  if  you  look,  a  low  wall 
built  along  the  way,  like  the  screen  which  marionette  players 
have  before  them,  over  which  they  show  the  puppets.  And 
do  you  see  men  passing  along  the  wall  carrying  vessels, 
which  appear  over  the  wall ;  and  some  of  the  passengers,  as 
you  would  expect,  are  talking,  and  some  of  them  are  silent  ? 

"  That  is  a  strange  image,  he  said,  and  these  are  strange 
prisoners.  Like  ourselves,  I  replied;  and  they  see  only 
their  own  shadows,  or  the  shadows  of  one  another,  which 
the  fire  throws  on  the  opposite  wall  of  the  cave. 

"  True,  he  said  ;  how  could  they  see  anything  but  the 
shadows,  if  they  were  never  allowed  to  move  their  heads  ? 

"  And  if  they  were  able  to  talk  with  one  another,  would 
they  not  suppose  that  they  were  naming  what  was  actually 
before  them  ?  And  suppose,  further,  that  the  prison  had 
an  echo  which  came  from  the  other  side ;  would  they  not 
be  sure  to  fancy  that  the  voice  which  they  heard  was  that 
of  a  passing  shadow  ?  And  now  look  again,  and  see  how 
they  are  released  and  cured  of  their  folly.  At  first,  when 

1  Phado,  66. 


96          A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

any  one  of  them  is  liberated,  and  compelled  suddenly  to 
go  up  and  turn  his  neck  round,  and  walk,  and  look  at  the 
light,  he  will  suffer  sharp  pains ;  the  glare  will  distress 
him,  and  he  will  be  unable  to  see  the  realities  of  which  in 
his  former  state  he  had  seen  the  shadows.  And  then  im- 
agine some  one  saying  to  him,  that  what  he  saw  before 
was  an  illusion,  but  that  now  he  is  approaching  real  being; 
what  will  be  his  reply  ?  Will  he  not  fancy  that  the  shad- 
ows which  he  formerly  saw  are  truer  than  the  objects 
which  are  now  shown  to  him  ? "  * 

By  practice,  however,  he  can  accustom  his  eyes  to  the 
new  conditions.  First  he  will  perceive  only  the  shadows 
and  reflections  in  the  water ;  then  he  will  gaze  upon  the 
light  of  the  moon  and  the  stars;  and  at  last  he  will  be  able 
to  see  the  sun  itself,  and  behold  things  as  they  are.  How 
he  will  rejoice  then  in  passing  from  darkness  to  light ;  how 
worthless  to  him  will  seem  the  honors  and  glories  of  the  den 
out  of  which  he  came!  And  now  imagine  further  that  he 
descends  into  his  old  habitations.  In  that  underground 
dwelling  he  will  not  see  as  well  as  his  fellows,  and  will  not 
be  able  to  compete  with  them  in  the  measurement  of  the 
shadows  on  the  wall;  there  will  be  many  jokes  about  the 
man  who  went  on  a  visit  to  the  sun  and  lost  his  eyes  ;  and 
if  those  imprisoned  there  find  any  one  trying  to  set  free 
and  enlighten  one  of  their  number,  they  will  put  him  to 
death  if  they  can  catch  him.  Of  course  philosophy  is 
the  means  through  which  this  enfranchisement  is  to  be 
attained.  "  When  returning  into  herself  the  soul  reflects, 
then  she  passes  into  the  realm  of  purity,  and  eternity,  and 
immortality,  and  unchangeableness,  which  are  her  kindred  ; 
and  with  them  she  ever  lives,  and  is  not  let  or  hindered. 
There  she  ceases  from  her  erring  ways,  and  being  in  com- 
munion with  the  unchanging,  is  unchanging ;  and  this 
state  of  the  soul  is  called  wisdom."2 

Only  partially,  indeed,  can  we  reach  this  in  our  present 
life,  for  we  are  still  clogged  by  the  weights  of  the  body. 

*  Republic,  515.  *Ph<zdo,  79. 


The  Systematic  Philosophers  97 

But  we  shall  reap  the  perfect  fruits  of  wisdom  in  another 
and  truer  life.  The  immortality  of  the  soul  thus  enters 
into  Plato's  philosophy,  and  he  supports  it  by  a  number 
of  proofs,  most  of  which  seem  to  us  rather  fantastic.  It 
is,  however,  not  easy  to  say  to  what  extent  Plato  has 
in  mind  an  individual  immortality  in  the  ordinary  sense, 
or  indeed  to  sift  out,  in  his  whole  treatment  of  the  matter, 
what  is  intended  to  be  mere  myth  and  poetry,  from  the 
philosophical  truth  that  underlies  it.  After  the  separation 
of  the  soul  from  the  body,  the  former  undergoes  various 
adventures,  which  Plato  describes  in  a  mythical  vein  in  the 
Pluzdo.  Only  the  soul  of  the  philosopher  may  pass  at 
once  to  the  realm  of  the  Ideas,  and  be  purged  completely 
from  the  taint  of  earth ;  others,  after  undergoing  purifica- 
tion, are  subjected  to  a  new  incarnation,  in  which  they 
take  on  the  body  for  which  their  previous  life  has  made 
them  most  fitted. 

It  will  be  apparent  that  such  a  conception  carries  with 
it  a  decided  disparagement  of  the  body,  and  of  the  world 
to  which  the  body  belongs.  This,  no  doubt,  is  due  in  part 
to  the  wise  man's  perception  of  the  futility  and  worthless- 
ness,  when  judged  by  the  true  standard,  of  many  of  the 
interests  which  seem  so  important  to  us,  when  our  immer- 
sion in  trivial  things  deprives  them  of  their  true  perspec- 
tive. "  Political  ambition  and  office-getting,  clubs  and 
banquets,  revels  and  singing  maidens,  do  not  enter  into 
the  philosopher's  dreams.  Whether  any  event  has  turned 
out  well  or  ill  in  the  city,  what  disgrace  may  have 
descended  to  any  one  from  his  ancestors,  male  or  female, 
are  matters  of  which  he  no  more  knows,  than  he  can  tell, 
as  they  say,  how  many  pints  are  contained  in  the  ocean."  * 
And  even  when  this  attitude  passes  to  the  extreme  of 
asceticism,  it  has  a  sufficient  justification  in  the  facts  of 
life,  to  give  it  a  certain  measure  of  plausibility.  "  Each 
pleasure  and  pain  is  a  sort  of  nail,  and  rivets  the  soul  to 
the  body,  and  engrosses  her,  and  makes  her  believe  that 

^Theatetus,  173. 
H 


98  A  Students  History  of  Philosophy 

to  be  true  which  the  body  affirms  to  be  true ;  and  from 
agreeing  with  the  body,  and  having  the  same  delights,  she 
is  obliged  to  have  the  same  habits  and  ways,  and  is  not 
likely  ever  to  be  pure  at  her  departure  to  the  world  below, 
but  is  always  saturated  with  the  body."  1 

But,  also,  there  are  serious  consequences  which  flow 
from  such  an  attitude.  It  implies  that  the  philosopher 
is  isolated  from  the  common  joys  and  common  activities 
of  his  fellow-men.  Occupied  with  the  high  things  of 
the  mind,  absorbed  in  the  beatific  vision,  he  has  no  real 
interest  left  even  for  the  political  assemblies,  the  laws 
of  the  state,  or  "  what  has  turned  out  well  or  ill  in  the 
city."  "  He  is  like  one  who  retires  under  the  shelter 
of  a  wall  in  the  storm  of  dust  and  sleet  which  the 
driving  wind  hurries  along,  and  when  he  sees  the  rest  of 
mankind  full  of  wickedness,  he  is  content  if  only  he  can 
live  his  own  life,  and  be  pure  from  evil  or  unrighteous- 
ness, and  depart  in  peace  and  good  will,  with  bright  hopes."2 
It  is  evident  how  far  this  has  travelled  from  the  Greek 
ideal  —  accepted  without  question  by  Socrates  —  of  man's 
life  as  essentially  a  social  life,  a  part  of  the  state.  With 
the  separation  that  Plato  makes,  everything  that  pertains 
to  this  world  becomes  logically  a  matter  of  indifference. 
"  The  truth  is,  that  only  the  outer  form  of  him  is  in  the 
city  ;  his  mind,  disdaining  the  littleness  and  nothingness 
of  human  things,  is  flying  all  abroad,  as  Pindar  says, 
measuring  with  line  and  rule  the  things  which  are  under 
and  on  the  earth,  and  above  the  heaven,  interrogating  the 
whole  nature  of  each  and  all,  but  not  condescending  to 
anything  which  is  within  reach."  3 

It  is  this  very  marked  dualism,  then,  between  the  world 
of  Ideas  and  the  world  of  things,  the  thought  life  and  the 
life  of  the  senses,  the  realm  of  moral  activity  and  that  of 
the  natural  desires  and  passions,  the  state  and  the  indi- 
vidual, which  is  the  greatest  difficulty  for  Plato's  philoso- 
phy as  a  system.  How  are  we  to  bring  the  two  sides  into 

iPhado,  83.  2  Republic,  496.  8  Theatetw,  173. 


The  Systematic  Philosophers  99 

relation  ?  for  clearly  they  must  have  a  relation  of  some 
sort.  There  is  no  being  satisfied  with  a  theory  which 
calmly  denies  the  validity  of  the  larger  part  of  our  nature. 
Why  were  senses  and  desires  bestowed  upon  us?  just 
in  order  that  they  might  hinder  us,  and  prevent  us  from 
attaining  our  true  destiny  ?  And  if  we  carry  the  difficulty 
back  to  the  more  ultimate  problem,  and  lay  the  blame  on 
the  inherent  depravity  of  matter,  why  should  there  be  a 
material  world  at  all  alongside  the  world  of  Ideas,  and 
what  is  their  connection  ?  If  the  Ideas  alone  have  a  true 
reality,  why  should  anything  else  exist  ?  What  is  the  na- 
ture of  that  which  is  not  real,  and  yet  is  real  enough  to 
furnish  a  problem. 

4.  Plato's  Later  Philosophy.  —  It  is  not  to  be  supposed 
that  these  difficulties  did  not  appeal  to  Plato  himself.  It 
is,  indeed,  not  wholly  fair  to  attribute  outright  to  him  the 
theory  which  leads  to  them.  On  the  whole,  his  tendency 
is  toward  a  dualistic  separation.  But  to  some  extent  he 
feels  its  unsatisfactoriness  all  along ;  and  he  constantly  is 
coming  back  to  a  tardy  recognition  of  the  rights  of  concrete 
experience. 

In  the  later  years  of  his  life,  this  recognition  led  Plato, 
in  the  opinion  of  some  modern  scholars,  to  at  least  a  par- 
tial recasting  of  his  theory.  At  any  rate,  it  is  clear  that 
he  saw  its  difficulties  very  plainly.  In  the  Parmenides, 
he  marshals  these  objections  against  his  own  philosophy. 
The  connection  between  the  Ideas,  and  things,  on  the  sup- 
position of  their  essential  duality,  is  shown  to  be  unin- 
telligible. To  say,  as  Plato  has  done,  that  things  "  imitate," 
or  "  participate  in,"  the  Idea,  is  to  convey  no  concrete 
meaning.  How,  e.g.,  can  the  Idea  of  man  be  spread  out  to 
form  the  essence  of  a  multitude  of  individual  men,  unless  it  is 
divisible  ?  and  if  it  is  divisible,  where  is  its  unity  as  an  Idea  ? 
Nor,  again,  is  the  knowledge  of  the  Ideas  by  the  human 
mind  conceivable,  if  they  exist  thus  in  a  realm  apart; 
whatever  they  may  be  for  God,  they  are  beyond  our  reach 
entirely,  and  so  they  help  us  not  at  all  in  explaining  things. 


ioo        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

Whether,  or  to  what  extent,  Plato  has  succeeded  in  over- 
coming the  defects  of  his  earlier  standpoint,  is  a  matter  on 
which  there  is  a  difference  of  opinion.  There  is  some 
ground  for  thinking  that  in  his  later  works,  influenced 
very  possibly  by  his  pupil  Aristotle,  he  has  attempted  to 
get  away  from  his  previous  dualism,  to  remove  the  Ideas 
from  their  isolation  and  bare  self-identity,  and  make  them 
give  an  account  of  themselves  as  actual  principles  for  ex- 
plaining things.  So,  in  the  Timaus,  Plato  takes  in  hand 
for  the  first  time  the  problem  of  the  physical  world  of 
science,  though,  again,  in  a  more  or  less  mythical  form. 
By  postulating  over  against  the  true  and  positive  exist- 
ence of  the  Ideas,  a  second  principle,  with  at  least  a  nega- 
tive sort  of  reality,  Plato  attempts,  through  its  union  with 
the  true  reality  of  the  Idea,  to  explain  the  phenomenal 
world,  which  we  could  not  explain  as  coming  from  the 
Idea  alone.  This  relationship  is  expressed  as  a  timeless 
act  of  creation,  by  which  God,  the  Demiurge,  informs 
the  chaos  of  Not-being  with  order  and  harmony,  after  the 
pattern  which  is  represented  in  the  Idea.  Through  the 
relation  of  the  world  of  phenomena  to  this  pattern  in 
which  it  participates,  the  explanation  of  facts  is  ultimately 
teleological,  as  opposed  to  the  mechanical  explanation  of 
the  Atomists.  Things  exist  for  the  sake  of  the  whole ; 
and  since  this  whole  is  in  the  form  of  reason,  and  so  of 
meaning,  they  can  only  be  accounted  for  by  being  placed 
in  their  relation  to  the  idea  which  represents  the  End,  or 
Highest  Good.  In  other  dialogues,  Plato  deals  more  di- 
rectly with  the  problem  of  knowledge  as  such.  Since, 
however,  his  later  theory,  if  he  has  one,  is  decidedly  un- 
certain, and  at  any  rate  did  not  determine  the  direction  of 
Plato's  historical  influence,  we  shall  perhaps  be  justified  in 
not  considering  it  further. 

5.  The  Academy.  —  The  school  which  Plato  founded, 
and  which  was  called  the  Academy,  continued  in  existence 
several  centuries  after  his  death,  although  it  passed  through 
a  number  of  vicissitudes.  At  different  periods  of  its  exist- 


The  Systematic  Philosophers  101 

ence,  it  represents  different  tendencies,  and  is  known  suc- 
cessively as  the  Older  Academy,  the  Middle  Academy,  and 
the  New  Academy.  Plato's  real  successor,  however,  and 
the  one  who  succeeded  in  developing  his  thought  in  a 
genuinely  significant  way,  is  not  found  among  the  more 
orthodox  followers  who  formed  the  Academy,  but  rather 
in  Aristotle,  the  originator  of  a  new  and  rival  school. 

LITERATURE 

Plato,  Dialogues,  esp.  Protagoras,  Gorgias,  Phado,  Phcedrus,  Re- 
public, Euthydemus,  Parmenides.  Thecetetus,  Timceus. 
Van  Oordt,  Plato  and  his  Times. 
J.  Seth,  Study  of  Ethical  Principles. 
Nettleship,  Philosophical  Lectures  and  Remains,  2  vols. 
Nettleship,  Theory  of  Education  in  Platens  Republic  (in  Hellenica). 
Bryan,  The  Republic  of  Plato. 
Bosanquet,  A  Companion  to  Platans  Republic. 
Zeller,  Plato. 

Pater,  Plato  and  Platonism. 
Ritchie,  Plato. 

J.  S.  Mill,  Essays  and  Discussions. 
Martineau,  Types  of  Ethical  Theory. 
Martineau,  Essays. 
Grote,  Plato,  3  vols. 
Grote,  History  of  Greece. 
Collins,  Plato. 
Shorey,  The  Unity  of  Platans  Thought. 

§12.    Aristotle.     The  Peripatetics 

Aristotle  was  born  at  Stagira,  in  386  B.C.  His  father 
came  of  a  family  of  physicians,  and  was  himself  physician 
to  the  king  of  Macedon.  Aristotle  received  his  philosoph- 
ical education  at  the  Academy  in  Athens,  but  owing  to 
certain  differences  of  standpoint,  he  ceased  later  on  to  call 
himself  a  disciple  of  Plato,  and  became  in  a  way  his  rival. 
He  was,  however,  profoundly  influenced  by  the  teachings 
to  which  he  had  listened,  and  perhaps  is  inclined,  in  the 
interests  of  his  own  originality,  to  exaggerate  the  real  ex- 
tent of  the  difference  between  himself  and  his  former  mas- 


IO2        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

ter.  In  343,  he  became  the  tutor  of  Alexander,  afterward 
to  be  called  the  Great  —  a  position  which  he  held  for  three 
years  with  marked  success.  In  335,  he  founded  a  school, 
in  the  walks  of  the  Lyceum  at  Athens.  After  the  death 
of  Alexander,  he  was  accused  by  the  patriotic  party  of  fa- 
voring the  political  pretensions  of  Macedon,  and  was  com- 
pelled to  go  into  exile  on  the  island  of  Eubcea,  where  he 
died  in  322  B.C. 

In  passing  from  Plato  to  Aristotle,  we  are  conscious  of 
a  marked  change  of  atmosphere.  Instead  of  the  deeply 
poetic  temperament,  which  sees  all  things  in  relation  to  a 
unitary  ideal,  fuses  them  to  form  a  single  picture,  and  en- 
deavors, by  all  sorts  of  partial  lights,  to  adumbrate  the  infi- 
nite and  unspeakable,  we  have  what  is  more  closely  allied 
to  the  scientific  type  of  mind,  parcelling  out  the  universe 
into  its  several  spheres,  untiring  in  its  search  for  facts,  fer- 
tile in  explanations  which  are  marked  by  practical  good 
sense,  and  which  are  based  on  historical  and  scientific  con- 
siderations. However,  this  does  not  mean  that  Aristotle 
is  no  metaphysician.  Indeed,  he  combines  in  himself,  as 
few  other  philosophers  have  done,  the  scientific  and  the 
metaphysical  interests.  And  we  may,  accordingly,  turn 
first  to  his  more  general  point  of  view  for  regarding  the 
universe,  since  this  makes  itself  felt  in  all  his  other  work. 

I.   Metaphysics,  Logic,  Psychology 

I.  TJte  Conception  of  Development.  —  Aristotle's  philo- 
sophical system  grows  out  of  the  problem  which  he  had 
inherited  from  Plato,  and  is  presented  most  systematically 
in  a  number  of  writings  collected  under  the  title  of  Meta- 
physics. The  name  is  probably  derived  from  the  fact  that, 
in  the  collection  of  Aristotle's  works,  this  volume  came 
after  the  writings  on  physics  (/*era  ra  $im«:a).  Plato  had 
left  his  two  worlds  —  the  world  of  the  Idea,  and  the  world 
of  matter  —  standing  in  strong  opposition,  and  practically 
separate.  How  is  it  possible,  now,  to  get  rid  of  this  dual- 


The  Systematic  Philosophers  103 

ism  ?  Aristotle's  answer  is  technical  in  its  nature,  and 
when  arrayed  in  the  special  terminology  which  he  uses,  it 
is  apt  to  seem  rather  formidable.  Perhaps,  however, 
the  essential  part  of  his  thought  may  be  simplified,  to  make 
its  bearing  more  obvious. 

To  begin  with,  Aristotle  recognizes  clearly  the  impossi- 
bility of  setting  up  Ideas  apart  from  things.  We  could 
not  prove  the  existence  of  such  Ideas,  if  they  were  wholly 
separate  from  the  world  in  which  we  have  our  being,  and 
to  which  our  knowledge  extends  ;  nor,  if  they  existed,  should 
we  be  able  to  explain  by  reference  to  them,  anything  what- 
ever in  this  lower  world,  since  we  have  so  carefully  removed 
the  two  from  contact.  The  statement  that  things  partici- 
pate in  the  Idea  is,  if  the  Idea  has  a  separate  being,  only  a 
metaphor,  which  conveys  no  intelligible  meaning.  But  it 
does  not  follow  that  the  Idea  has  no  existence,  and  that 
the  only  reality  is  the  world  of  individual  objects.  The 
Idea  does  exist,  and  it  forms  a  very  essential  part  of  real- 
ity ;  only  it  exists  in  the  world,  and  in  things,  not  outside 
of  and  apart  from  them. 

The  best  way  to  gain  a  clear  notion  of  what  Aristotle 
means  by  this,  is  to  take  a  concrete  illustration.  We  shall 
find  such  an  illustration  in  what  we  call  an  organism.  What 
is  it  we  mean,  e.g.,  by  an  oak  tree  ?  Is  it  merely  a  collec- 
tion of  the  particular  parts  which  go  to  make  it  up  as  an 
object  in  space?  But  where  shall  we  start  to  make  such 
an  analysis  ?  If  we  take  the  acorn  —  and  there  surely  is  a 
sense  in  which  the  oak  already  exists  in  the  acorn  —  we 
shall  get  one  result ;  if  we  wait  till  the  tree  is  full  grown, 
we  shall  get  another  and  a  very  different  one.  The  idea  of 
the  tree  i.e.,  evidently  includes  more  than  can  be  summed 
up  in  any  one  moment  of  the  tree's  existence ;  all  the  pro- 
cesses by  which  it  changes  from  one  stage  to  another  — 
from  the  acorn  to  maturity,  from  maturity  to  decay  —  also 
belong  to  the  complete  notion  of  what  a  tree  is.  Nor  is 
this  all.  The  mere  description  of  the  parts,  misses  com- 
pletely the  unity  of  the  organism,  that  which  makes  it  a 


IO4        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

single  object ;  we  must  also  bring  in  the  use  which  each 
part  serves,  in  relation  to  the  other  parts,  and  to  the  entire 
organism  —  to  the  Idea  of  the  tree  as  a  whole.  If  there 
were  no  Idea,  if  the  particular  facts  were  everything,  there 
would  be  no  tree,  but  only  a  series  of  molecular  changes. 

There  are  two  things  especially  to  be  noticed  in  this  con- 
ception. In  the  first  place,  the  reality  becomes  a  process 
of  development.  Any  complete  definition  of  the  tree,  will 
have  to  include  in  some  way  the  whole  course  of  its  life;  for 
only  by  reference  to  this  entire  process  can  the  particular 
stages  and  organs  be  placed  and  understood.  It  is  by  means 
of  this  notion  of  development,  that  Aristotle  overcomes 
the  dualism  of  Plato.  Just  as  long  as  reality  is  regarded 
as  something  unchanging  and  complete,  we  are  obliged  to 
separate  it  from  the  material  world,  where  there  is  no  such 
perfect  fulfilment,  but  only  approximation.  But,  further- 
more, this  process  is  no  mere  series  of  disconnected 
changes  ;  it  is  a  real  development,  or  growth.  Looked  at 
from  the  standpoint 'of  physical  science,  the  tree  can  be 
reduced  to  a  succession  of  molecular  changes,  entirely 
continuous  with  all  the  other  changes  in  the  universe. 
But  a  tree  is,  for  our  knowledge,  more  than  this ;  it  is  a 
single  process,  possessing  as  an  organism  its  own  peculiar 
unity  of  end.  Only,  again,  it  is  not  an  end  which  comes 
literally  at  the  finish  —  such  an  end  is  but  the  end  of  death  ; 
nor  does  it  exist  in  any  sense  outside  the  life  of  the  tree. 
That  life  process  is  itself  the  end.  The  tree  fulfils  the 
purpose  which  it  embodies,  in  the  very  act  of  growing. 

Now  this  is  essentially  what  Aristotle  means.  As  the 
tree  is  nothing  outside  the  whole  process  of  growth  and 
decay,  regarded  as  bound  into  a  unity  by  its  relation  to 
the  type  or  Idea  of  the  tree,  so  the  concept  in  general 
does  not  exist  separate  from  the  material  world  of  gen- 
eration, but  only  in  that  world.  Matter,  and  concept, 
or  Idea,  are  relative  terms,  neither  of  which  has  any  real 
existence  apart  from  the  other.  Matter  is  the  organic  pro- 
cess looked  at  from  the  side  of  potentiality,  of  what  as  yet 


The  Systematic  Philosophers  105 

is  unrealized,  as  the  acorn  is  the  material  from  which  the 
oak  will  spring.  It  is  the  possibility  of  the  realization  of 
the  Idea.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  pure  matter ;  it 
always  has  some  definite  characteristics,  or  form.  Form, 
or  the  concept,  is  the  same  process  on  the  side  of 
actuality,  fulfilment.  It  is  the  inner  meaning  expressing 
itself  concretely  in  material  form  ;  the  end  which  governs 
the  series  of  particular  changes.  It  is  only  as  it  thus  em- 
bodies the  Idea,  that  anything  becomes  an  object  of  knowl- 
edge. The  transition  from  the  potential  to  the  actual  is 
motion,  or  evolution,  or  development.  True  existence  is 
thus  not  something  apart  from  the  phenomenal  world,  but 
realized  in  it ;  it  is  possibility  made  real,  the  potential 
actualized,  Aristotle's  entclechy. 

Such  a  conception  involves,  if  it  is  taken  seriously,  an 
important  change  in  philosophical  standpoint ;  it  substitutes 
a  changing,  or  dynamic,  reality,  for  the  purely  static  and 
all-complete  perfection  with  which  ultimate  existence  had 
been  identified  by  Plato.  Heracleitus,  indeed,  had  sug- 
gested the  same  thought,  when  he  made  reality  a  process 
of  Becoming ;  but  by  introducing  the  concept  of  end,  or 
purpose,  into  the  process,  Aristotle  succeeded  in  giving 
it  a  unity  beyond  anything  that  Heracleitus  had  been 
able  to  formulate.  There  is,  however,  another  side  to 
Aristotle's  theory,  which  would  seem  to  prevent  our  taking 
this  too  strictly.  A  different  type  of  illustration  will  sug- 
gest the  point  more  clearly.  Instead  of  taking  his  examples 
from  organic  life,  where  matter  and  form  are  in  truth  only 
distinguishable,  and  not  separate,  Aristotle  also  turns  fre- 
quently to  illustrations  from  human  workmanship,  especially 
in  artistic  creation.  Take  a  statue,  e.g. :  the  reality  of  the 
statue  is  the  marble  shaped  to  body  forth  the  sculptor's 
ideal.  Here  evidently  we  have  two  sides  again  —  the 
material  which  furnishes  the  conditions  for  the  artist's 
work,  and  the  idea  in  his  mind  which  represents  the  cause 
of  his  activity,  and  the  end  toward  which  it  is  directed. 
But  there  is  a  separation  here  which  did  not  exist  in  the 


lo6        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

organism.  From  the  standpoint  of  the  statue,  the  two 
things  are  related,  it  is  true.  The  marble  is  not  mere 
brute  mass,  for  the  sculptor  sees  in  it,  even  in  the  rough, 
the  possibility  of  the  realization  of  his  ideal;  his  ideal, 
too,  is  not  a  mere  dream,  but  something  to  be  actualized 
in  the  marble.  Still,  in  the  illustration,  the  idea,  or 
form,  and  the  matter,  are  two  distinct  things,  before 
they  meet  in  the  statue  ;  and  the  idea  exists  in  a  certain 
degree  of  completeness,  or  it  could  not  guide  the  artist's 
hands. 

Now  if  we  apply  this  to  the  world  at  large,  it  leads  to  the 
conception  of  a  graded  series  of  realities.  Each  step  in 
this  series  reveals  more  and  more  those  universal  relation- 
ships which  go  to  render  it  intelligible,  an  object  of  true 
knowledge.  In  the  actual  world  of  generation,  we  have 
not,  indeed,  anything  more  than  a  relative  purity  of  the 
formal  element.  Everything  is  alike  matter  and  form  — 
matter  to  what  lies  above  it  in  the  scale,  form  to  what  is 
lower  down.  The  marble  is  matter  to  the  statue ;  but  it  is 
not  pure  matter.  It  also  has  definite  characteristics,  and 
so,  in  relation  to  a  lower  grade  of  matter,  it  stands  itself  as 
form.  The  tree  is  form  in  relation  to  the  elements  that 
are  taken  from  the  soil  to  further  its  growth,  matter  in  rela- 
tion to  the  house  which  is  made  from  its  timber. 

But  now,  from  another  point  of  view,  the  Reason  which 
reveals  itself  in  the  world  process  is  not,  for  Aristotle, 
actually  generated  by  the  process  as  such.  Rather,  it  is 
eternally  implied  as  the  necessary  condition  for  the  world's 
intelligibility.  At  the  end  of  the  series,  therefore,  lies  that 
which  no  longer  is  relative  merely,  but  absolute.  It  is  pure 
form,  the  pure  Idea,  since  there  is  nothing  beyond  it  to 
which  it  can  stand  in  the  relation  of  matter.  God  is  thus 
absolute  Spirit,  with  no  touch  of  the  corporeal.  His  is  the 
life  of  pure  thought,  which  has  as  its  content  no  foreign 
matter,  but  only  thought  itself.  Unmoved  himself,  he  is 
the  mover  of  the  universe,  not  as  an  active  agent,  but  as 
the  final  end  of  all,  the  ideal  toward  which  the  whole 


The  Systematic  Philosophers  107 

creation  moves  by  an  inner  necessity,  as  the  beautiful  and 
the  good  stir  up  our  endeavor  to  realize  them,  not  by 
anything  they  themselves  do,  but  by  the  appeal  they  make 
to  our  desires  as  worthy  of  being  realized.  Whether, 
in  this  final  outcome  of  his  philosophy,  Aristotle  has  wholly 
escaped  the  difficulties  that  beset  Plato,  may  be  ques- 
tioned. But  the  entire  conception  is  in  any  case  a  remark- 
able achievement,  to  which  the  modern  philosopher  may 
still  return  with  profit. 

2.  Logic.  —  Leaving  his  general  standpoint,  we  may  turn 
next  to  an  examination  of  some  of  the  details  of  Aristotle's 
system.  And  we  are  struck,  first  of  all,  by  the  great  ad- 
vance which  has  been  made  in  the  distinction  of  problems, 
and  their  accurate  definition.  Even  with  Plato,  the  various 
different  aspects  of  the  world  are  still  largely  bound  up 
together ;  in  Aristotle,  however,  this  gives  place  to  a  divi- 
sion into  separate  fields,  each  with  fairly  well-defined  boun- 
daries. Logic,  Ethics,  Metaphysics,  Physical  Science, 
Psychology,  Political  Science,  Rhetoric,  ./Esthetics,  —  all 
are  thus  subjected  to  treatment  by  themselves,  in  an  essen- 
tially modern  way. 

Aristotle's  most  perfect  achievement  is  his  Logic,  found 
chiefly  in  the  collection  of  writings  called  the  Organon. 
Of  course  there  had  been,  before  his  day,  some  isolated 
treatment  of  logical  details,  especially  among  the  Sophists  ; 
but  there  was  no  connected  body  of  logical  doctrine. 
Aristotle  not  only  succeeded  in  creating  such  a  science, 
but  he  did  his  work  so  thoroughly  that,  in  the  field  which 
it  professes  to  occupy,  it  has  remained  practically  un- 
changed ever  since.  The  so-called  Formal  Logic,  the 
analysis  of  the  processes  of  deductive  argument  as  this  is 
taught  to-day,  does  not  differ  essentially  from  the  formu- 
lation which  Aristotle  gave  it  over  two  thousand  years  ago. 
But  while,  with  us,  this  Logic  is  regarded  as  in  truth 
purely  formal,  and  as  representing  a  somewhat  abstract 
method  of  proof  or  argumentation,  rather  than  the  actual 
process  of  scientific  inquiry  and  explanation,  in  Aristotle's 


io8        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

mind  it  had  no  such  restriction.  We  have  seen  that,  for 
Aristotle,  all  changes  are  determined  by  reference  to  the 
realization  of  an  end  —  the  Idea  or  form.  The  form  is 
thus  also  a  cause ;  and  the  form  is  equivalent  to  what  we 
call  the  concept.  Scientific  procedure,  then,  consists  in 
bringing  about  a  proper  subordination  of  concepts  ;  the 
logical  process,  instead  of  being  only  a  method  of  proof, 
constitutes  a  scientific  explanation  as  well. 

Logic,  accordingly,  centres  about  the  syllogism  —  the 
process  by  which  there  is  deduced  the  relation  of  two  con- 
cepts, in  the  way  of  logical  subordination,  through  the 
medium  of  two  premises  and  a  middle  term.  This  latter, 
by  standing  in  a  relation  to  each  concept  separately,  dis- 
covers their  relation  to  one  another.  Aristotle  worked  out 
the  different  forms  which  it  is  possible  for  the  syllogism 
to  assume,  in  practically  an  exhaustive  way. 

3.  Natural  Science  and  Psychology. — With  Aristotle, 
Logic  was  not  so  much  a  special  science,  or  branch  of 
knowledge,  as  an  introduction  to  all  sciences,  a  determina- 
tion of  the  form  of  the  mind's  action,  which  might  be 
applied  to  every  subject-matter  alike.  If  we  turn  now 
to  these  special  branches  to  which  Aristotle's  encyclo- 
paedic activity  directed  itself,  it  will  be  sufficient  merely 
to  notice  those  writings,  which  to-day  we  should  class 
under  the  head  of  science  in  the  strict  sense.  Most  im- 
portant, from  the  philosophical  point  of  view,  is  the 
relation  of  this  mass  of  knowledge,  to  his  metaphysical 
doctrine  of  matter  and  form.  Since  every  two  successive 
grades  of  complexity  in  the  world  process  stand  to  each 
other  in  the  relation  of  matter  and  form,  the  result  is  a 
well-knit  theory  of  teleological  evolution.  As  we  pass 
upward  from  purely  mechanical  changes,  to  chemical 
changes  of  quality,  and  thence  to  organic  life,  involving 
growth  and  decay  ;  as,  in  organisms,  we  advance  from  the 
vegetative  life  of  the  plant,  to  the  animal  soul,  capable  of 
sensation  and  motion  ;  and  from  the  animal  soul  to  man, 
from  sensation  to  reason :  we  find  each  step  governed  by 


The  Systematic  Philosophers  109 

an  upward  impulse  toward  the  succeeding  step,  which 
constitutes  its  perfection,  or  entelechy  —  the  goal  toward 
which  it  is  striving.  The  whole  world  is  moving  toward 
the  realization  of  the  Idea ;  reason  is  everywhere  present 
and  working  in  it.  The  lower  reality  is  not  destroyed  in 
the  higher,  but  is  utilized.  Mechanical  and  chemical 
changes  still  take  place  in  the  organism  ;  but  a  new  form  is 
impressed  upon  them,  which  causes  them  to  realize  the 
organism's  life.  The  vegetative  soul  —  the  mere  life  prin- 
ciple—  is  not  lost  sight  of  in  the  animal,  but,  again,  is 
directed  and  utilized  for  something  higher. 

The  most  significant  application  of  this  conception  comes 
out  in  Aristotle's  treatment  of  psychology,  a  treatment 
which,  though  somewhat  slight,  is  very  interesting  and  valu- 
able. By  considering  the  human  soul  as  the  entelechy  of 
the  body,  in  whose  service  the  whole  body  is  enlisted,  Aris- 
totle is  in  the  way  of  getting  rid  of  the  dualism  of  the  two, 
and  attaining  the  modern  position,  which  takes  the  whole 
psycho-physical  man  as  the  subject-matter  of  psychology, 
not  mere  mind  by  itself.  Man  is  still  an  animal ;  the 
vegetative  and  animal  souls  still  exist  in  him.  But  they 
exist  now  for  the  sake  of  the  higher  life  of  reason  ;  and  so 
mere  impulses,  and  mere  sensation,  become  transformed, 
and  take  on  the  specifically  human  character  of  knowledge 
and  will.  The  different  aspects  of  the  soul  thus  form  a 
real  unity,  and  do  not  simply  exist  in  juxtaposition,  as  with 
Plato.  In  detail,  Aristotle's  treatment  of  the  conscious  life 
is  in  general  very  suggestive ;  and  many  of  the  things  he 
has  to  say  about  memory,  desire,  the  processes  of  sensa- 
tion, the  unity  of  consciousness,  the  association  of  ideas,  are 
striking  anticipations  of  modern  psychological  doctrines. 

2.   Ethics,  Politics,  ^Esthetics 

I.  Ethics.  —  It  is,  however,  Aristotle's  treatment  of  Ethics 
and  Political  Science,  which  is  of  greatest  interest  to  the 
modern  reader.  Here,  again,  we  start  from  the  same  ques- 


no        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

tion  which  Plato  had  raised  :  What  is  the  highest  good,  the 
end  of  life  ?  If  we  were  to  ask  the  opinion  of  men  in 
general,  we  probably  should  find  most  of  them  agreeing, 
both  that  happiness,  and  virtue,  enter  into  the  composition 
of  the  good.  But  what  is  the  content  of  these  terms  ? 
Here  Aristotle's  metaphysics  helps  him  out.  The  end  of 
a  thing  is  the  fulfilment  of  its  Idea,  the  realization  of  the 
potentialities  of  its  own  peculiar  nature.  If,  then,  we  are 
able  to  define  that  which  constitutes  a  man  as  such,  we 
can  determine  what  is  for  him  the  Snmmnm  Bonum. 

"  Perhaps  it  seems  a  truth  which  is  generally  admitted, 
that  happiness  is  the  supreme  good ;  what  is  wanted  is  to 
define  its  nature  a  little  more  clearly.  The  best  way  of 
arriving  at  such  a  definition  will  probably  be  to  ascertain 
the  function  of  Man.  For  as  with  a  flute  player,  a 
statuary,  or  any  artisan,  or  in  fact  anybody  who  has  a 
definite  function  and  action,  his  goodness  or  excellence 
seems  to  lie  in  his  function,  so  it  would  seem  to  be  with 
Man,  if  indeed  he  has  a  definite  function.  Can  it  be  said, 
then,  that  while  a  carpenter  and  a  cobbler  have  definite 
functions  and  actions,  Man,  unlike  them,  is  naturally 
functionless  ?  The  reasonable  view  is,  that  as  the  eye, 
the  hand,  the  foot,  and  similarly  each  several  part  of  the 
body,  has  a  definite  function,  so  Man  may  be  regarded  as 
having  a  definite  function  apart  from  all  these.  What, 
then,  can  this  function  be  ?  It  is  not  life,  for  life  is  appar- 
ently something  which  man  shares  with  the  plants,  and 
it  is  something  peculiar  to  him  that  we  are  looking  for. 
We  must  exclude,  therefore,  the  life  of  nutrition  and 
increase.  There  is,  next,  what  may  be  called  the  life  of 
sensation.  But  this,  too,  is  apparently  shared  by  Man 
with  horses,  cattle,  and  all  other  animals.  There  remains 
what  I  may  call  the  practical  life  of  the  rational  part  of 
Man's  being.  But  the  rational  part  is  twofold ;  it  is 
rational  partly  in  the  sense  of  being  obedient  to  reason, 
and  partly  in  the  sense  of  possessing  reason  and  intelli- 
gence. The  practical  life,  too,  may  be  conceived  of  in  two 


TJte  Systematic  Philosophers  1 1 1 

ways,  but  we  must  understand  by  it  the  life  of  activity,  as 
this  seems  to  be  the  truer  form  of  the  conception.  The 
function  of  Man,  then,  is  an  activity  of  soul  in  accordance 
with  reason,  or  not  independently  of  reason.  Again,  the 
functions  of  a  person  of  a  certain  kind,  and  of  such  a 
person  who  is  good  of  his  kind,  e.g.,  of  a  harpist,  and  a 
good  harpist,  are  in  our  view  generically  the  same,  and 
this  view  is  true  of  people  of  all  kinds  without  exception, 
the  superior  excellence  being  only  an  addition  to  the 
function  ;  for  it  is  the  function  of  a  harpist  to  play  the 
harp,  and  of  the  good  harpist  to  play  the  harp  well.  This 
being  so,  if  we  define  the  function  of  Man  as  a  kind  of 
life,  and  this  life  as  an  activity  of  soul,  or  a  course  of  action, 
in  conformity  with  reason,  if  the  function  of  a  good  man 
is  such  activity  or  action  of  a  good  and  noble  kind,  and  if 
everything  is  successfully  performed  when  it  is  performed 
in  accordance  with  its  proper  excellence,  it  follows  that  the 
good  of  Man  is  an  activity  of  soul  in  accordance  with  vir- 
tue, or,  if  there  are  more  virtues  than  one,  in  accordance 
with  the  best  and  most  complete  virtue.  But  it  is  necessary 
to  add  the  words  'in  a  complete  life.'  For  as  one  swal- 
low or  one  day  does  not  make  a  spring,  so  one  day  or 
a  short  time  does  not  make  a  fortunate  or  happy  man."  * 

Virtue,  then,  or  the  supreme  end  of  man's  life,  con- 
sists in  the  unobstructed  realization,  or  exercise  in 
conscious  and  voluntary  action,  of  his  rational  nature. 
And  since  pleasure  is  but  the  accompaniment  of  suc- 
cessful activity,  and  the  pleasure  is  better  in  proportion 
to  the  excellence  of  the  faculty  exercised,  the  highest 
virtue  is,  by  that  very  fact,  the  greatest  happiness. 
Aristotle,  with  his  characteristic  love  of  common-sense 
opinions,  is  careful  not  to  depreciate  the  importance  of 
happiness.  "  Happiness  is  the  best  and  noblest  and  pleas- 
antest  thing  in  the  world,  nor  is  there  any  such  distinc- 
tion between  goodness,  nobleness,  and  pleasure,  as  the 
epigram  at  Delos  suggests :  — 

1  Ethics,  I,  6.     Welldon's  translation.     (Macmillan  &  Co.) 


112        A  Students  History  of  Philosophy 

"'Justice  is  noblest,  health  is  best, 
To  gain  one's  end  is  pleasantest.1 "  * 

But  this  of  course  does  not  refer  to  any  and  every  pleasure. 
"  Pleasures  are  desirable,  but  not  if  they  are  immoral  in 
their  origin  ;  just  as  wealth  is  pleasant,  but  not  if  it  be 
obtained  at  the  cost  of  turning  traitor  to  one's  country ;  or 
health,  but  not  at  the  cost  of  eating  any  food  however  dis- 
agreeable." 2  Nor  are  we  speaking  of  purely  trivial  pleas- 
ures. "  Happiness  does  not  consist  in  amusement.  It 
would  be  paradoxical  to  hold  that  the  end  of  human  life  is 
amusement,  and  that  we  should  toil  and  suffer  all  our  life 
for  the  sake  of  amusing  ourselves."3  Aristotle  tends  to 
confine  the  term  "  happiness,"  to  the  activity  of  what  seems 
to  him  the  best  part  of  our  nature.  "  It  is  reasonable  not 
to  speak  of  an  ox,  or  a  horse,  or  any  other  animal,  as  happy 
—  even  of  a  child.  For  happiness  demands  a  complete 
virtue  and  a  complete  life."  4 

By  reason,  however,  of  the  division  in  man's  soul  between 
the  pure  intellect,  and  the  lower  desires  and  impulses,  which 
are  only  capable  of  acting  in  subjection  to  reason,  without 
being  rational  in  their  own  nature,  virtue  becomes  sub- 
divided into  intellecttial  and  moral.  The  highest  virtue, 
since  reason  is  the  esssential  element  in  man,  is  the  life  of 
philosophy,  of  purely  rational  insight,  or  contemplation. 
The  pleasure  of  speculation  is  of  all  pleasures  the  highest, 
the  most  continuous,  the  purest,  the  most  self-sufficient. 
"  If,  then,  the  reason  is  divine  in  comparison  with  the  rest 
of  man's  nature,  the  life  which  accords  with  reason  will  be 
divine  in  comparison  with  human  life  in  general.  Nor  is 
it  right  to  follow  the  advice  of  people  who  say  that  the 
thought  of  men  should  not  be  too  high  for  humanity,  or 
the  thought  of  mortals  too  high  for  mortality ;  for  a  man, 
so  far  as  in  him  lies,  should  seek  immortality,  and  do  all 
that  is  in  his  power  to  live  in  accordance  with  the  highest 
part  of  his  nature,  as,  although  that  part  is  insignificant  in 

1I,9-  2X,  2.  8X,6.  « 1, 10. 


The  Systematic  Philosophers  113 

size,  yet  in  power  and  honor  it  is  far  superior  to  all  the 
rest." 1  Moral  virtues  are  human  ;  this  one  is  godlike.  "  Our 
conception  of  the  Gods  is  that  they  are  preeminently  happy 
and  fortunate.  But  what  kind  of  actions  do  we  properly 
attribute  to  them  ?  Are  they  just  actions  ?  But  it  would 
make  the  Gods  ridiculous  to  suppose  that  they  form  con- 
tracts, restore  deposits,  and  so  on.  Are  they,  then,  coura- 
geous actions  ?  Do  the  Gods  endure  dangers  and  alarms 
for  the  sake  of  honor  ?  Or  liberal  actions  ?  But  to  whom 
should  they  give  money  ?  It  would  be  absurd  to  suppose 
that  they  have  a  currency,  or  anything  of  the  kind,  Surely, 
to  praise  the  Gods  for  temperance  is  to  degrade  them  ; 
they  are  exempt  from  low  desires.  We  may  go  through 
the  whole  category  of  virtues,  and  it  will  appear  that 
whatever  relates  to  moral  action  is  petty  and  unworthy  of 
the  Gods.  Yet  the  Gods  are  universally  conceived  as  liv- 
ing, and  therefore  as  displaying  activity  ;  they  are  certainly 
not  conceived  as  sleeping  like  Endymion.  If,  then,  action, 
and  still  more  production,  is  denied  to  one  who  is  alive, 
what  is  left  but  speculation  ?  It  follows  that  the  activity 
of  God,  being  preeminently  blissful,  will  be  speculative, 
and,  if  so,  then  the  human  activity  which  is  most  nearly 
related  to  it,  will  be  most  capable  of  happiness."  2  "  Again, 
he  whose  activity  is  directed  by  reason,  and  who  cultivates 
reason,  and  is  in  the  best  state  of  mind,  is  also,  as  it  seems, 
the  most  beloved  of  the  Gods.  For  if  the  Gods  care  at  all 
for  human  beings,  as  is  believed,  it  will  be  only  reasonable 
to  hold  that  they  delight  in  what  is  best  and  most  related 
to  themselves,  i.e.,  in  reason ;  and  that  they  requite  with 
kindness  those  who  love  and  honor  it  above  all  else,  as 
caring  for  what  is  dear  to  themselves,  and  performing 
right  and  noble  actions."  8 

But  also  the  ordinary  individual,  who  is  not  a  philoso- 
pher, is  capable  of  leading  a  life  of  moral  conduct,  or  of 
virtue  in  the  secondary  sense,  as  opposed  to  pure  specula- 
tive activity.  And  here  Aristotle  tries  to  overcome  the 

i  X,  7.  «  x,  8.  3  x,  9. 

i 


H4        -^  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

dualism  which  Plato  left  standing  between  the  sensuous 
and  the  higher  nature ;  and  to  find  an  ideal,  even  if  not 
the  highest  ideal,  within  the  realm  of  common  experi- 
ence. Such  virtue  goes  back  to  man's  natural  impulses, 
but  not  as  they  are  exercised  in  a  purely  impulsive,  and 
so  spasmodic,  way.  Aristotle  continually  insists  that  vir- 
tue is  no  mere  natural  gift  of  disposition,  but  a  result 
of  doing.  "  It  is  neither  by  nature,  nor  in  defiance  of 
nature,  that  virtues  are  implanted  in  us.  Nature  gives 
us  the  capacity  of  receiving  them,  and  that  capacity  is 
perfected  by  habit"  J  As  builders  learn  by  building,  and 
harpists  by  playing  the  harp,  so  it  is  by  doing  just  acts 
that  we  become  just.  "As  in  the  Olympian  games,  it  is 
not  the  most  beautiful  and  strongest  persons  who  receive 
the  crown,  but  they  who  actually  enter  the  list  as  comba- 
tants, so  it  is  they  who  act  rightly  that  attain  to  what  is 
noble  and  good  in  life."  2  Even  philosophy  will  not  make 
a  man  virtuous,  till  it  is  put  into  practice  ;  those  who 
imagine  otherwise,  are  like  people  who  listen  attentively 
to  their  doctors,  but  never  do  anything  that  their  doctors 
tell  them.  Virtue,  then,  stands  for  a  definite  habit  of  mind, 
brought  about  by  a  continual  repetition  of  acts,  in  which 
the  impulse  is  directed  by  voluntary  and  intelligent  effort, 
in  such  a  way  as  to  express  man's  essential  nature.  It  is 
thus  not  the  suppression  of  the  natural  impulses,  as  with 
Plato,  but  their  regulation. 

The  necessary  rational  principle,  Aristotle  finds  in  his 
doctrine  of  virtue  as  a  mean.  An  impulse  has  in  it  the 
possibility  of  giving  rise  to  a  virtue,  by  taking  the  middle 
course  between  excess  and  deficiency,  and  then  by  being 
repeated  until  it  becomes  a  second  nature.  "  The  first 
point  to  be  observed  is,  that  in  such  matters  as  we  are  con- 
sidering, deficiency  and  excess  are  equally  fatal.  It  is  so 
as  we  observe  in  regard  to  health  and  strength;  for  we 
must  judge  of  what  we  cannot  see  by  the  evidence  of  what 
we  do  see.  Excess  or  deficiency  of  gymnastic  exercise  is 


The  Systematic  Philosophers  115 

fatal  to  strength.  Similarly,  an  excess  or  deficiency  of 
meat  and  drink  is  fatal  to  health,  whereas  a  suitable 
amount  produces,  augments,  and  sustains  it.  It  is  the 
same,  then,  with  temperance,  courage,  and  the  other  vir- 
tues. A  person  who  avoids  and  is  afraid  of  everything, 
and  faces  nothing,  becomes  a  coward;  a  person  who  is 
not  afraid  of  anything,  but  is  ready  to  face  everything, 
becomes  foolhardy.  Similarly,  he  who  enjoys  every  pleas- 
ure, and  never  abstains  from  any  pleasure,  is  licentious ; 
he  who  eschews  all  pleasures,  like  a  boor,  is  an  insensible 
sort  of  person."  1  In  like  manner,  liberality  lies  between 
avarice  and  prodigality,  modesty  between  impudence  and 
bashfulness,  sincerity  between  self-disparagement  and 
boastfulness,  good  temper  between  dulness  and  irascibil- 
ity, friendly  civility  between  surliness  and  obsequiousness, 
just  resentment  between  callousness  and  spitefulness,  high- 
mindedness  between  littleness  of  mind  and  pompousness. 
Put  in  a  somewhat  less  mechanical  way,  moral  virtue  is 
the  sort  of  action  which  adequately  meets  the  situation 
that  confronts  us.  It  consists  in  accepting  the  conditions 
of  life,  not  resting  content,  on  the  one  hand,  with  less  than 
the  full  possibilities,  nor,  on  the  other,  neglecting  the  pos- 
sible for  unattainable  ideals. 

2.  Politics.  —  Man,  however,  is  more  than  an  individual. 
By  nature  he  is  a  political  animal,  who  can  attain  his  high- 
est good  only  in  society ;  and  so  Ethics  is  subordinate  to 
Politics.  Society  arises  out  of  the  physical  needs  of  man, 
who  is  not  self-sufficing,  but  has  to  cooperate  with  his  fel- 
low-men in  order  to  be  sure  of  subsistence  ;  but  this  is  not 
its  sole  ground.  Originating  in  the  bare  needs  of  life,  it 
continues  for  the  sake  of  the  good  life.  The  state,  there- 
fore, and  the  science  which  deals  with  the  state,  have  the 
highest  ethical  aim.  "  Political  science  is  concerned  with 
nothing  so  much  as  with  producing  a  certain  character  in 
the  citizens,  or,  in  other  words,  with  making  them  good, 
and  capable  of  performing  noble  actions."  2 

1 II,  2.  a  1, 10. 


n6        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

Aristotle  goes  on  to  discuss  various  problems  relating 
to  the  theory  of  government,  and  the  different  forms 
which  the  state  assumes,  with  a  good  deal  of  sound  sense, 
and  frequent  appeal  to  history ;  but  the  absence  of  any 
one  illuminating  point  of  view  renders  his  treatment  a 
little  confused,  and  robs  it  of  the  peculiar  interest  which 
attaches  to  Plato's  Republic.  Plato's  ideal  state  is,  indeed, 
criticised  by  Aristotle  with  more  or  less  effectiveness,  par- 
ticularly in  its  communistic  features.  Aristotle  sees  that 
no  machinery  of  government  will  be  of  much  avail,  so  long 
as  human  nature  remains  what  it  is ;  it  is  not  the  institu- 
tion of  property  alone  which  is  responsible  for  all  our 
ills.  In  particular,  the  abolishing  of  family  life,  by  de- 
stroying the  roots  of  natural  affection,  would  work  quite 
contrary  to  Plato's  purpose.  Aristotle  himself  refuses  to 
be  content  with  setting  up  a  single  ideal.  He  has  his  own 
notion  of  what  is  abstractly  the  best  form  of  government 
—  the  absolute  rule,  namely,  of  a  single  man,  provided  we 
could  find  one  preeminently  wise  and  good.  But  a  politi- 
cal treatise  also  should  recognize  actual  conditions  ;  and 
practically  the  "best"  government  is  a  relative  term,  and 
will  differ  with  the  degree  of  development  of  the  people  who 
are  to  be  governed.  In  general,  there  are  three  types  of 
government,  according  as  the  state  is  ruled  by  one,  by  the 
few,  or  by  the  many  —  monarchy,  aristocracy,  and  constitu- 
tional republic.  When  one  man  stands  out  preeminently 
among  his  fellow-citizens,  a  monarchy  is,  as  has  been  said, 
the  natural  form ;  when  a  few  men  are  obviously  superior 
in  virtue,  an  aristocracy.  It  is  not  to  be  forgotten,  however, 
that  mere  numbers  give  a  certain  stability  and  massive 
wisdom  in  affairs  of  government ;  while,  accordingly,  the 
individual  members  of  the  multitude  may  be  inferior  to  a 
chosen  few,  yet,  taken  collectively,  their  wisdom  may  con- 
ceivably be  superior,  since  they  supplement  one  another. 
In  particular,  they  may  be  the  best  judges  of  what  affects 
themselves,  as  a  guest  is  a  better  judge  of  a  feast  than  the 
cook  who  prepares  it ;  though  they  may  not  possess  the 


The  Systematic  Philosophers  117 

constructive  skill  to  bring  about  what  they  want.  So,  also, 
a  mass  of  men  is  apt  to  be  more  incorruptible  than  a  single 
man. 

Each  of  the  three  types  of  government  may  be  perverted, 
when  the  ruling  class  ceases  to  aim  at  the  common  interest, 
and,  instead,  keeps  its  own  advantage  in  view.  For  the 
average  state,  a  mixture  of  the  types  is  advisable,  since 
this  cements  the  interests  of  the  different  classes ;  and  for 
the  same  reason,  a  state  in  which  the  middle  class  is  strong, 
is  likely  to  be  more  permanent  than  where  either  of  the 
extremes  predominates.  Of  course,  to  a  large  extent,  the 
reasonings  of  Aristotle  apply  to  conditions  very  dissimilar 
to  those  which  any  modern  country  has  to  meet.  Greek 
society  was  founded  on  the  institution  of  slavery  —  an  in- 
stitution which  Aristotle  justifies  theoretically,  on  the  ground 
that  some  men  are  not  fitted  to  guide  themselves  by  reason, 
but  find  their  whole  life  in  bodily  action,  and,  consequently, 
are  slaves  by  nature.  Another  important  difference  is  to  be 
noticed,  in  his  attitude  toward  the  worker  in  general.  No 
man  can  practise  virtue,  he  says,  who  is  living  the  life  of  a 
mechanic  or  laborer;  and  the  assertion  that  greatness  is 
impossible  to  a  state  which  produces  numerous  artisans,  but 
few  soldiers,  reveals  a  social  condition  far  removed  from 
our  modern  industrial  society.  So,  again,  the  fact  that 
the  principle  of  representative  government  lies  beyond  his 
point  of  view,  renders  it  inevitable  that  the  state  of  which 
he  speaks,  should  be  very  limited  in  size ;  a  democracy 
in  the  modern  sense,  as  distinct  from  the  city-state  of  the 
Greeks,  he  is  unable  to  imagine.  Still,  the  Politics  is 
interesting  even  at  the  present  day,  and  in  spite  of  differ- 
ences in  detail,  the  modernness  of  tone  and  of  method  is 
very  noticeable. 

3.  ^Esthetics. — The  Poetics  is  rather  slight  in  nature, 
but  as  the  first  attempt  to  treat  in  a  separate  way  that  side 
of  philosophy  which,  in  its  larger  aspect,  is  now  known  as 
^Esthetics,  it  deserves  some  mention,  and  I  will  borrow 
the  brief  summary  which  Mayor  gives :  — 


n8        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

"  In  the  Poetic,  Aristotle  takes  Plato's  view  of  poetry 
as  a  branch  of  Imitation,  and  divides  it  into  three  parts, 
Epic,  Tragic,  and  Comic.  All  imitation  is  a  source  of  pleas- 
ure, but  the  imitation  of  the  poet  or  artist  is  not  simple  rep- 
resentation of  ordinary  fact,  but  of  the  universal  or  ideal 
which  underlies  ordinary  fact;  whence  poetry  is  more 
philosophical  than  history.  This  is  most  conspicuous  in 
Tragedy,  where  the  characters  are  all  on  a  grander  scale 
than  those  of  common  life ;  but  even  Comedy  selects  and 
heightens  in  its  imitation  of  the  grotesque.  Tragedy  is 
not,  as  Plato  thought,  a  mere  enfeebling  luxury  ;  rather  it 
makes  use  of  the  feelings  of  pity  and  terror  to  purify  simi- 
lar affections  in  ourselves,  i.e.,  it  gives  a  safe  vent  to  our 
feelings,  by  taking  us  out  of  ourselves,  and  opening  our  hearts 
to  sympathize  with  the  heavier  woes  of  humanity  at  large, 
typified  in  the  persons  of  the  drama ;  while  it  chastens  and 
controls  the  vehemence  of  passion  by  never  allowing  its 
expression  to  transgress  the  limits  of  beauty,  and  by  rec- 
ognizing the  righteous  meaning  and  use  of  suffering."1 

The  school  which  Aristotle  founded  was  known  as  the 
Peripatetic  school.  It  maintained  an  existence  alongside 
the  Academy  for  many  years,  but  produced  no  new  doc- 
trines of  any  great  importance. 

LITERATURE 

Aristotle,  Chief  Works :  Organon,  Metaphysics,  De  Anima,  Nicho- 
machean  Ethics,  Politics,  Poetics,  Rhetoric.  Translations :  Welldon 
{Ethics,  Politics,  Rhetoric)  ;  Jowett  (Politics)  ;  Wallace  (Psychology)  ; 
Hammond  (Psychology) ;  Wharton  (Poetics).  Also  translations  in 
Bohn's  Library. 

Zeller,  Aristotle  and  the  Earlier  Peripatetics,  2  vols. 

Grote,  Aristotle,  2  vols. 

Wallace,  Outlines  of  Aristotle's  Philosophy. 

Lewes,  Aristotle. 

A.  Grant,  Aristotle. 

Davidson,  Aristotle  and  Ancient  Educational  Ideals. 

Bradley,  Aristotle's  Theory  of  the  State  (in  Hellenica). 

1 A  Sketch  of  Ancient  Philosophy.     (Cambridge  University  Press.) 


THE   LATER   ETHICAL   PERIOD 

§  13.   Introduction 

WITH  Aristotle,  the  period  of  great  speculative  systems 
comes  to  a  close.  In  his  successors,  the  course  of  philoso- 
phy takes  a  new  turn,  which  it  is  to  follow  for  several 
centuries. 

The  reason  for  this  new  departure,  there  has  already 
been  occasion  to  notice ;  it  is  due  to  the  breakdown  of 
Greek  political  and  social  life.  From  Socrates  to  Aristotle, 
Philosophy  had  made  an  attempt  to  stem  the  current  of 
dissolution,  and  to  set  up  again,  on  a  rational  basis,  that 
ideal  of  a  corporate  life  which,  resting  originally  on  the 
foundation  of  a  customary  morality,  had  begun  to  totter 
when  this  morality  was  attacked,  alike  by  political  corrup- 
tion and  by  philosophical  scepticism.  But  the  attempt 
was  not  successful ;  and  from  one  philosopher  to  another, 
we  see  the  recognition  of  its  hopelessness  in  the  grow- 
ing prominence  assigned  to  the  theoretical  life,  and  the 
substitution  of  philosophy  for  active  participation  in  social 
interests.  After  the  conclusion  of  the  Peloponnesian  War, 
and  the  fall  of  Athens,  things  went  from  bad  to  worse  in 
Greece.  Feuds  and  jealousies  increased  among  the  numer- 
ous petty  states  into  which  the  country  was  divided.  Per- 
sonal ambitions  led  to  the  solicitation  of  foreign  interference, 
especially  from  Persia ;  and  the  employment  of  mercenaries 
still  further  threatened  the  existence  of  freedom.  With  the 
loss  of  Greek  independence,  and  the  supremacy  of  Mace- 
don,  the  failure  of  the  Greek  civilization  became  a  settled 
fact,  however  much  the  attempt  might  be  made  to  nurse 
the  forms  of  freedom.  The  appearance  of  isolated 

119 


I2O        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

patriots  only  brought  into  clearer  relief  the  disintegration, 
and  incapacity  for  united  action,  on  the  part  of  Greece  as 
a  whole ;  so  that  the  final  loss  of  all  chance  of  indepen- 
dence, by  the  intervention  of  the  Roman  power,  was  a  real 
blessing  to  the  country.  After  the  capture  of  Corinth  by 
Mummius,  in  146  B.C.,  Greece  became  a  Roman  province, 
under  the  name  of  Achaia. 

It  is  not  strange,  therefore,  that  philosophy  turned  from 
the  ideal  of  man  as  an  organic  member  of  a  social  order 
that  no  longer  had  any  true  existence,  and  occupied  itself 
instead  with  the  individual  man,  and  the  way  in  which 
he  might  obtain  such  satisfaction  as  he  could,  in  the 
troublous  times  in  which  his  lot  was  cast.  A  new  social 
ideal  with  any  vitality  in  it,  could  only  come  into  being  as 
history  prepared  the  way,  by  giving  rise  to  a  form  of  society 
more  adequate  than  that  of  the  Greeks,  and  possessing 
those  elements  through  lack  of  which  Greek  civilization 
had  failed.  Meanwhile,  however,  men  must  have  some- 
thing as  the  guiding  principle  in  their  lives,  to  take  the 
place  of  that  which  formerly  had  been  supplied  by  the 
traditional  duties  of  citizenship,  and  the  authoritative  sanc- 
tions of  the  state  religion.  And  to  get  this,  they  turned  in 
one  of  two  directions.  On  the  one  hand,  there  begins  now 
to  some  extent  that  frantic  running  after  Oriental  cults, 
which  forms  so  striking  a  feature  in  the  life  of  the  Empire 
later  on.  Belief  in  the  old  gods  and  the  old  religion,  was 
undermined  by  scepticism,  only  to  be  replaced  by  a  super- 
stition which  grasped  at  every  novelty. 

The  more  sober  minds,  on  the  other  hand,  turned  to 
philosophy  for  guidance  and  comfort.  For  the  next  few 
centuries,  then,  philosophy  assumes  an  intensely  practical 
aspect ;  it  aims  to  be  nothing  more  nor  less  than  a  complete 
art  of  living.  You  pretend  that  you  are  not  calculated  for 
philosophy  ?  says  Diogenes ;  why  then  do  you  live,  if  you 
have  no  desire  to  live  properly  ?  "  Philosophy,"  writes 
Seneca,  "  is  not  a  theory  for  popular  acceptance  and 
designed  for  show ;  it  is  not  in  words,  but  in  deeds.  It  is 


The  Later  Ethical  Period  121 

not  employed  to  help  us  pass  the  day  agreeably,  or  to 
remove  ennui  from  our  leisure ;  it  forms  and  fashions  the 
mind,  sets  in  order  our  life,  directs  our  action,  shows  what 
ought  to  be  done  and  to  be  left  undone ;  it  sits  at  the  helm 
and  guides  the  course  through  perplexities  and  dangers. 
Without  it  none  can  live  fearlessly,  none  securely ;  count- 
less things  happen  every  hour  which  call  for  counsel,  and 
this  can  only  be  sought  for  in  philosophy.  Whether  fate 
constrains  by  an  inexorable  law,  or  God  is  judge  of  the 
universe  and  arranges  all  things,  or  chance  without  reference 
to  any  order  impels  and  confounds  the  affairs  of  men,  phi- 
losophy ought  to  be  our  safeguard.  It  will  encourage  us 
to  obey  God  willingly,  to  obey  fortune  without  yielding ;  it 
will  teach  us  to  follow  God,  to  put  up  with  chance."  1 

Furthermore,  in  all  its  various  tendencies,  the  philoso- 
phy of  the  next  few  centuries  is  practically  agreed  in  this : 
that  if  there  is  any  good  attainable  at  all,  it  must  be  found 
by  each  man  within  himself.  Circumstances-  have  passed 
beyond  man's  power  of  control ;  but  if  he  cannot  remedy 
the  ills  of  the  outer  world,  or  find  in  the  life  which  sur- 
rounds him  a  worthy  field  for  his  endeavor,  he  can  at  least 
make  himself  independent  of  this  world,  cultivate  that 
philosophic  calm  and  poise  which  finds  all  the  elements 
of  happiness  within  the  mind  itself,  and  thus  be  put  be- 
yond the  power  of  chance  to  harm.  Both  of  the  two  more 
original  philosophical  currents  of  the  period  have  primarily 
in  view  this  practical  end.  Although  they  are  reached  by 
very  different  roads,  the  cnrdBeia  (freedom  from  emotion) 
of  the  Stoics,  and  the  cnapa^ta  (imperturbability)  of  Epi- 
cureanism, have,  superficially  at  least,  a  close  resemblance. 

The  same  thing  is  true  of  another  characteristic  ten- 
dency of  the  time,  viz.,  Scepticism.  A  distrust  of  the 
powers  of  reason  naturally  succeeds  a  period  of  great 
speculative  activity.  As  the  ideals  which  give  rise  to 
systems  of  thought  in  such  a  period  lose  their  freshness, 
the  theoretical  gaps  in  the  arguments  on  which  they  have 

1  Letters^  II,  4. 


122        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

been  based,  begin  to  monopolize  attention.  And  since  be- 
lief always  is  at  bottom  a  matter  of  faith,  rather  than  of 
demonstration,  and  no  new  enthusiasm  has  yet  appeared 
to  bind  knowledge  into  a  unity  again,  and  back  it  with 
conviction,  a  sceptical  distrust  of  the  possibility  of  knowl- 
edge is  the  result.  But  here,  also,  the  interest  was  not 
primarily  theoretical.  Scepticism,  like  its  rivals,  is  only  a 
discipline  to  prepare  the  mind  for  assuming  such  an  atti- 
tude toward  life  as  will  enable  it  to  secure  what  satisfac- 
tion it  may.  Such  disinterested  intellectual  curiosity  as 
remained,  directed  itself  largely  to  the  investigation  of 
literary,  grammatical,  and  historical  details,  where  no  great 
theoretical  principles  were  involved. 

The  same  lack  of  intellectual  grasp,  which  showed 
itself  on  the  one  hand  in  the  sceptical  abandonment 
of  the  possibility  of  knowledge,  and,  on  the  other,  in 
a  mere  painstaking  collection  of  facts,  gave  rise  also  to 
the  tendency  to  Eclecticism.  Unable  to  deal  with  fun- 
damental principfesptKere  was  a  growing  disposition  to 
settle  the  disputes  of  philosophy  by  an  uncritical  combina- 
tion of  the  various  systems,  brought  about  on  the  basis  of 
no  deep  insight,  but,  again,  to  meet  practical  needs.  The 
intensely  practical  nature  of  the  Roman  mind,  and  its  dis- 
inclination for  metaphysical  thinking,  gave  a  special  im- 
pulse to  this  tendency.  And,  finally,  as  the  inability 
of  Philosophy,  as  mere  ethical  doctrine,  to  satisfy  men, 
became  more  and  more  evident,  a  union  of  the  two  move- 
ments—  that  toward  philosophy,  and  that  toward  reli- 
gion—  was  gradually  brought  about,  culminating  in  the 
religious  metaphysics  of  the  Church  Fathers,  and,  espe- 
cially, of  the  Neo-Platonists.  We  shall  consider  these 
tendencies  in  their  order. 

§  14.   Epicurus  and  Epicureanism 

i.  Epicurus  (341-270  B.C.)  was  an  Athenian,  who  was 
born,  however,  in  Samos.  About  306  he  founded  his 


The  Later  Ethical  Period  123 

school,  which  was  held  in  his  own  gardens  at  Athens. 
Here  he  gathered  about  him  a  group  of  enthusiastic  dis- 
ciples, including  among  their  number  even  women  and 
slaves.  Bound  together  by  the  closest  ties  of  intimacy 
and  friendship,  they  formed  a  group  which  was  famous 
in  antiquity,  as  furnishing  an  ideal  of  friendly  intercourse. 
In  this  group  Epicurus  reigned  supreme.  His  followers 
regarded  him  with  the  utmost  veneration  —  a  veneration 
which  is  expressed  in  the  words  of  Lucretius  in  later  days : 
"  For  if  we  must  speak  as  the  acknowledged  grandeur  of 
the  thing  itself  demands,  a  God  he  was,  a  God,  most  noble 
Mummius,  who  first  found  out  that  plan  of  life  which  is 
now  termed  wisdom,  and  who  by  trained  skill  rescued  life 
from  such  great  billows  and  such  thick  darkness,  and 
moored  it  in  so  perfect  a  calm  and  in  so  brilliant  a  light."  1 
His  teachings  were  memorized  by  his  pupils,  and  accepted 
without  change,  down  to  unimportant  details.  So  rigidly 
did  he  impress  his  views  upon  them,  that,  in  spite  of  the 
long  life  which  the  school  enjoyed,  its  speculative  opinions 
scarcely  altered  to  the  end.  Partly  for  this  reason,  the 
names  which  represent  the  later  history  of  the  school  are 
only  of  very  secondary  importance ;  Lucretius,  among  its 
Roman  adherents,  is  indeed  famous,  but  rather  as  a  poet 
than  a  philosopher. 

Epicurus'  philosophy  is  a  combination  of  the  Hedonism 
of  the  Cyrenaics,  with  the  Atomism  of  Democritus.  First 
of  all,  however,  it  is  Hedonism  —  a  theory  of  the  end  of 
life,  the  highest  good.  Like  Aristippus  before  him,  Epi- 
curus found  in  pleasure  the  one  obvious  and  undeniable 
good.  Even  when  we  speak  of  virtue  as  a  good,  as  no 
doubt  we  do  and  may,  it  is  really  the  pleasure  which  ac- 
companies the  exercise  of  virtue  which  we  have  in  mind, 
not  virtue  on  its  own  account.  But  here  begin  certain 
complications.  When  Aristippus  had  said  these  same 
things,  he  had  been  pretty  clear  what  he  meant ;  pleasure 
stood  to  him  for  the  same  positive  content  that  it  does  to 

1  Lucretius,  V,  1.  7.     Munro's  translation.     (Geo.  Bell  &  Sons.) 


124        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

the  ordinary  man.  Nor  could  Epicurus  very  well  deny 
that  such  pleasure  is  a  good.  He  makes  the  declaration, 
indeed,  that  no  conception  of  the  good  is  possible  apart 
from  bodily  enjoyments ;  while  Metrodorus,  one  of  his 
followers,  even  asserts  baldly  that  everything  good  has 
reference  to  the  belly. 

But  philosophy  is  more  sophisticated  now  than  it  had 
been  in  Aristippus"  time ;  the  stumbling-blocks  in  the  way 
of  pleasure-getting  are  more  clearly  recognized.  And  in 
endeavoring  to  take  account  of  this  in  his  theory,  Epicurus 
goes  farther  than  he  would  seem  to  be  justified  in  doing.  In 
part,  he  lays  stress  on  the  necessity  of  selecting  our  pleas- 
ures, of  avoiding  those  unregulated  impulses  which  bring 
evils  in  their  train,  of  preferring  simple  and  natural  joys  to 
the  questionable  delights  of  luxury  and  extravagance ;  and, 
so  far,  there  is  no  inconsistency  with  his  starting-point. 
But  when  he  goes  on,  also,  to  disparage  all  positive  pleasures, 
in  favor  of  a  philosophic  poise  of  mind  (ataraxy),  a  quiet 
and  undisturbed  possession  of  one's  faculties  free  from 
pain  of  body  and  trouble  of  spirit,  it  is  not  easy  always  to 
distinguish  his  position  from  that  of  his  opponents,  the 
Stoics  ;  and  he  is  led  to  adopt  an  attitude  toward  sensuous 
satisfaction,  hardly  to  be  expected  of  a  Hedonist.  He  even 
takes  up  the  theory  that  positive  pleasures  but  represent 
the  relief  that  results  from  the  removal  of  a  pain.  And  there- 
fore they  are  only  the  preliminaries  of  a  true  satisfaction, 
which,  in  itself,  is  nothing  but  the  freedom  from  pain  that 
leaves  the  mind  without  craving,  and  without  agitation,  and 
which,  once  attained,  is  incapable  of  quantitative  increase. 
"  The  end  of  our  living  is  to  be  free  from  pain  and  fear. 
And  when  once  we  have  reached  this,  all  the  tempest  of 
the  soul  is  laid.  When  we  need  pleasure  is  when  we  are 
grieved  because  of  the  absence  of  pleasure ;  but  when  we 
feel  no  pain,  then  we  no  longer  stand  in  need  of  pleasure."  J 
This  calm  of  mind  may  even  render  a  man  contented  in 
spite  of  physical  tortures,  if  he  will  only  assert  his  inde- 

1  Diog.  Laertius,  Life  of  Epicurus,  §  27. 


The  Later  Ethical  Period  125 

pendence  of  adventitious  aids  to  happiness,  and  refuse  to 
let  himself  be  disturbed ;  torn  on  the  rack,  the  philosopher 
may  exclaim,  How  sweet !  So  far  have  we  travelled  from 
the  conception  of  happiness  as  a  mere  agreeable  excitation 
of  the  senses,  with  which  Hedonism  started  out. 

But  whether  or  not  Epicurus  is  logically  consistent  in  his 
position,  at  any  rate  he  created  an  ideal  which  appealed 
powerfully  to  a  certain  type  of  mind,  and  which  even  to- 
day, as  a  working  theory  of  life,  exerts  a  wide  influence. 
It  is  not  a  strenuous  ideal ;  it  calls  for  no  heroism  or  sacri- 
fice; but  this  very  fact  constitutes  its  charm  for  certain 
moods,  which  to  few  men  are  wholly  unknown.  And  the 
attitude  of  opposition  which,  in  the  interests  of  an  aes- 
thetic simplicity,  it  assumes  toward  the  more  flagrant  vices 
and  follies,  gives  it  a  sufficient  moral  flavor  to  hide  its  more 
ignoble  aspects.  What — so  its  burden  is — does  man's  fret, 
and  ambition,  and  busy  toil,  after  all  avail  him  ?  Does  all 
the  boasted  advance  of  civilization  add  one  real  pleasure 
to  his  life  ?  Does  it  do  anything,  indeed,  but  plague  him 
with  added  cares,  and  weary  him  with  war  and  strife  ?  He 
longs  to  be  rich,  and  famous,  and  powerful,  and  is  dragged 
hither  and  thither  by  his  ambition,  only  to  expose  himself 
to  envy,  and  the  daily  risk  of  ruin,  and  win  nothing  in  the 
end;  a  frugal  subsistence  joined  to  a  contented  mind  alone 
is  true  riches.  "  If  any  one  thinks  his  own  not  to  be  most 
ample,  he  may  become  lord  of  the  whole  world,  and  will 
yet  be  wretched."  The  wise  man  will  not  despise  pleasure 
when  it  comes  to  him,  but  he  will  not  be  dependent  on  it. 
He  will  be  able  to  get  along  contentedly  with  little,  finding 
his  satisfaction  in  the  common  things  and  incidents  of  life, 
and  getting  an  added  zest  from  the  very  consciousness  of 
his  ability  to  go  without.  "  He  enjoys  wealth  most  who 
needs  it  least.  If  thou  wilt  make  a  man  happy,  add  not 
unto  his  riches,  but  take  away  from  his  desires." 

Epicureanism  is,  then,  in  one  aspect,  like  the  message  of 
Rousseau  in  modern  times,  a  summons  to  return  from  the 
complexities  of  civilization,  to  nature  and  natural  pleasures; 


126        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

to  take  life  easily  and  artistically,  and  cease  to  worry  over 
trifles  ;  to  depend  for  happiness  less  on  highly  spiced  foods 
and  elaborate  banquets,  than  on  a  good  digestion,  and  the 
company  of  friends.  This  ideal  was  fully  exemplified  in 
the  life  of  the  early  Epicureans.  "  When,"  says  Seneca, 
"  you  come  to  the  gardens  where  the  words  are  inscribed  : 
Friend,  here  it  will  be  well  for  you  to  abide ;  here  pleasure 
is  the  highest  good :  there  will  meet  you  the  keeper  of  the 
place,  a  hospitable,  kindly  man,  who  will  set  before  you  a 
dish  of  barley  porridge,  and  plenty  of  water,  and  say  :  Have 
you  not  been  well  entertained  ?  These  gardens  do  not 
provoke  hunger,  but  quench  it ;  they  do  not  cause  a 
greater  thirst  by  the  very  drinks  they  afford,  but  assuage 
it  by  a  remedy  which  is  natural,  and  costs  nothing.  In 
this  pleasure  I  have  grown  old."  J  "  For  myself,"  writes 
Epicurus  to  a  friend,  "  I  can  be  pleased  with  bread  and 
water  ;  yet  send  me  a  little  cheese,  that  when  I  want  to  be 
extravagant  I  may  be ;  "  and  he  boasts  that  while  Metrodo- 
rus  had  only  reduced  his  expenses  to  sixpence,  he  himself 
had  been  able  to  live  comfortably  on  a  less  sum. 

The  parallel  with  Rousseau  extends  also  to  Epicurus' 
estimate  of  science,  and  human  learning.  Although  he 
finds  his  chief  joys  in  the  mental  world,  he  is  very  far  from 
commending  the  strenuous  intellectual  life  which  for  Plato, 
e.g.,  constitutes  man's  highest  good.  He  is  quite  as  easy- 
going here  as  in  the  rest  of  his  theory.  Intellectual  enjoy- 
ment means  refined  conversation,  pleasant  intercourse 
between  friends,  and  not  any  anxious  and  soul-disturbing 
inquiry  after  the  hidden  truth  of  things.  For  what  com- 
monly goes  by  the  name  of  learning  and  culture,  Epicurus 
has  little  respect ;  he  was  himself  not  a  trained  thinker,  and 
he  did  not  require  more  than  the  rudiments  of  education  for 
his  disciples.  If  they  were  able  to  read  and  write,  they  had 
all  that  was  essential ;  mathematics,  logic,  and  rhetoric,  the 
theory  of  music  and  art,  the  researches  of  the  grammarian 
and  historian,  were  disparaged  by  him,  as  contributing  noth- 

1  Letters,  II,  9. 


The  Later  Ethical  Period  127 

ing  to  human  happiness,  and  so  as  a  mere  waste  of  time. 
"  One  need  not  bother  himself,"  says  Metrodorus,  "  if  he  has 
never  read  a  line  of  Homer,  and  does  not  know  whether 
Hector  was  a  Trojan  or  a  Greek."  How  does  it  happen, 
then,  that  the  scientific  explanation  of  the  universe,  as 
represented  in  the  theories  of  Democritus,  plays  so  large  a 
part  in  the  Epicurean  teaching  ?  Why  does  Epicurus  in- 
sist upon  this  as  an  essential  part  of  his  philosophy,  and 
impose  it  in  the  most  dogmatic  of  ways  upon  his  followers  ? 
2.  The  primary  reason  is  not  that  Epicurus  had,  like 
the  modern  scientist,  a  feeling  for  positive  and  concrete 
facts,  in  opposition  to  the  verbal  subtilties  of  logic,  gram- 
mar, and  metaphysics ;  it  is  an  entirely  practical  reason. 
Physical  science  is,  for  Epicurus,  a  mere  instrument  for 
making  possible  that  calm  of  mind,  in  which  the  end  of 
life  consists.  And  it  does  this  because  it  rids  us,  once  for 
all,  of  that  which  is  the  greatest  foe  to  inward  peace,  and  a 
contented  acquiescence  with  the  world  —  namely,  religion. 
"Will  wealth  and  power,"  writes  Lucretius,  "avail  anything 
to  cause  religious  scruples  scared  to  fly  panic-stricken  from 
the  mind,  and  that  the  fears  of  death  leave  the  breast  un- 
embarrassed and  free  from  care  ?  But  if  we  see  that  such 
things  are  food  for  laughter  and  mere  mockeries,  and  in 
good  truth  the  fears  of  men  and  dogging  cares  dread  not 
the  clash  of  arms  and  cruel  weapons,  if  unabashed  they 
mix  among  kings  and  kesars,  and  stand  not  in  awe  of  the 
glitter  of  gold  nor  the  brilliant  sheen  of  the  purple  robe,  how 
can  you  doubt  that  this  is  wholly  the  prerogative  of  reason, 
when  the  whole  life  is  withal  a  struggle  in  the  dark  ?  For 
even  as  children  are  flurried  and  dread  all  things  in  the  thick 
darkness,  thus  we  in  the  daylight  fear  at  times  things  not 
a  whit  more  to  be  dreaded  than  those  which  children  shud- 
der at  in  the  dark,  and  fancy  sure  to  be.  This  terror,  there- 
fore, and  darkness  of  mind  must  be  dispelled,  not  by  the 
sun  and  glittering  shafts  of  day,  but  by  the  aspect  and  law 
of  nature." 1 

1 II,  1.43- 


128        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

Religion,  then,  is  the  great  bugbear  of  the  Epicureans. 
The  evils  that  have  attended  religious  belief  and  practice 
have  filled  their  minds,  until  it  seems  to  them  the  one  cause 
of  wretchedness  in  the  world ;  and  it  is  the  chief  merit  of 
philosophy,  and  of  Epicurus,  that  the  reign  of  religion  has 
been  brought  to  an  end.  "  When  human  life  to  view  lay 
foully  prostrate  upon  earth,"  says  Lucretius,  "  crushed 
down  under  the  weight  of  religion,  who  showed  her  head 
from  the  quarters  of  heaven  with  hideous  aspect  lowering 
upon  mortals,  a  man  of  Greece  ventured  first  to  lift  up  his 
mortal  eyes  to  her  face,  and  first  to  withstand  her  to  her 
face.  Him  neither  story  of  Gods  nor  thunderbolts  nor 
heaven  with  threatening  roar  could  quell ;  they  only  chafed 
the  more  the  eager  courage  of  his  soul,  filling  him  with 
desire  to  be  the  first  to  burst  the  fast  bars  of  nature's  por- 
tals. Therefore  the  living  force  of  his  soul  gained  the  day; 
on  he  passed  far  beyond  the  flaming  walls  of  the  world, 
and  traversed  throughout  in  mind  and  spirit  the  immeasur- 
able universe,  whence  he  returns  a  conqueror  to  tell  us 
what  can,  what  cannot  come  into  being,  in  short,  by  what 
principle  each  thing  has  its  powers  defined,  its  deep-set 
boundary  mark.  Therefore  religion  is  put  under  foot  and 
trampled  upon  in  turn  ;  us  his  victory  brings  level  with  the 
heavens."  1 

Accordingly,  this  is  the  function  of  science :  to  sweep 
aside  the  chimeras  and  religious  scruples  which  enchain 
men,  and  make  them  slaves  to  their  own  diseased  fancies  ; 
which  upset  the  calculations  of  life,  trouble  all  the  future 
with  superstitious  fear,  and  put  repose  and  happiness 
beyond  their  reach.  And  it  does  this  by  substituting  a 
purely  natural  and  mechanical  explanation  for  events,  and 
so  making  religion  superfluous.  Men  have  imagined  that 
the  world  is  made  and  ruled  by  Gods,  whose  favor,  there- 
fore, they  must  secure,  and  whose  wrath  they  must  propi- 
tiate. These  Gods  are  continually  interfering  in  the  affairs 
of  men,  punishing  and  rewarding,  hurling  the  thunderbolt, 

1 1, 1.  63. 


The  Later  Ethical  Period  129 

and  sending  plagues  and  earthquakes.  The  soul,  more- 
over, is  immortal,  and  so  we  must  still  look  forward  to 
possible  vengeance  in  the  future,  and  the  woes  of  Tartarus. 
Doubtless  such  stories  had,  with  the  rise  of  science  and 
philosophy,  long  since  come  to  be  more  or  less  discredited 
in  the  eyes  of  educated  men.  But  now  that  everything  in 
the  world  was  in  a  state  of  change,  and  the  landmarks 
which  had  guided  men  were  disappearing,  the  need  for 
something  to  which  to  cling  began  to  manifest  itself,  in  a 
return  to  the  superstitions  which  it  was  supposed  had  been 
outgrown. 

Against  this  tendency,  Epicurus  resolutely  sets  himself 
in  opposition.  Only  by  finally  ridding  oneself  of  the 
vague  hopes  and  fears  which  tear  and  distract  the  mind, 
and  prevent  it  from  finding  its  satisfaction  in  the  present, 
can  the  true  end  of  life  be  attained ;  and  hence  the  value 
of  science.  Only  our  ignorance  lets  us  imagine  that  events 
are  brought  about  by  supernatural  interference ;  true  rea- 
son tells  a  very  different  story.  Given  atoms  and  the 
space  in  which  they  move,  and  we  have  the  data  for  ex- 
plaining everything.  Is  it  said  that  we  have  no  reason 
for  supposing  such  atoms,  which  are  forever  invisible  and 
intangible  ?  But  so  is  the  wind  invisible,  and  yet  it  has 
the  force  to  stir  up  the  sea  to  a  fury,  and  overwhelm  great 
ships;  to  sweep  the  plains  and  the  mountains,  and  tear  up 
the  trees  of  the  forest  by  their  roots.  And  countless  facts 
go  to  show  that  it  is  of  such  minute  particles  that  things 
are  made.  A  ring  on  the  finger  is  thinned  by  wearing ; 
the  dropping  from  the  eaves  hollows  a  stone ;  the  iron 
ploughshare  imperceptibly  decreases  in  the  fields ;  the 
stone-paved  streets  are  worn  down  by  the  feet  of  the 
multitude. 

And  granting  such  a  vera  causa,  what  use  have  we 
for  any  other  explanation,  beyond  the  chance  impact 
and  combination  of  these  ultimate  seeds  of  things  ? 
How  should  Gods  have  the  power  to  frame  the  mighty 
fabric  of  the  world?  or  why  should  they  trouble  them- 


130         A   Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

selves  to  do  it  if  they  could?  Is  this  the  sort  of  world 
a  God  would  make,  with  all  its  evils  and  imperfections  ? 
"  In  the  first  place,  of  all  the  space  which  the  vast  reach 
of  heaven  covers,  a  portion  greedy  mountains  and  forests 
of  wild  beasts  have  occupied,  rocks  and  wasteful  pools 
take  up,  and  the  sea  which  holds  wide  apart  the  coasts  of 
different  lands.  What  is  left  for  tillage,  even  that  nature 
by  its  power  would  overrun  with  thorns  unless  the  force 
of  man  made  head  against  it,  accustomed  for  the  sake  of 
a  livelihood  to  groan  beneath  the  strong  hoe,  and  to  cut 
through  the  earth  by  pressing  dow,n  the  plough.  Unless 
by  turning  up  the  fruitful  clods  with  the  share  and  labor- 
ing the  soil  of  the  earth  we  stimulate  things  to  rise,  they 
could  not  spontaneously  come  up  into  the  clear  air.  And 
even  then  sometimes  when  things  earned  with  great  toil 
now  put  forth  their  leaves  over  the  lands  and  are  all  in 
blossom,  either  the  etherial  sun  burns  them  up  with  exces- 
sive heats,  or  sudden  rains  and  cold  froacs  cut  them  off, 
and  the  blasts  of  the  winds  waste  them  by  a  furious  hurri- 
cane. Again,  why  does  nature  give  food  and  increase  to 
the  frightful  race  of  wild  beasts  dangerous  to  mankind 
both  by  sea  and  land  ?  why  do  the  seasons  of  the  year 
bring  diseases  in  their  train  ?  why  stalks  abroad  untimely 
death  ?  Then,  too,  the  body,  like  to  a  sailor  cast  away  by 
the  cruel  waves,  lies  naked  on  the  ground,  speechless, 
wanting  every  furtherance  of  life,  soon  as  nature  by  the 
throes  of  birth  has  shed  him  forth  from  his  mother's  womb 
into  the  borders  of  life.  He  fills  the  room  with  a  rueful 
wailing,  as  well  he  may  whose  destiny  it  is  to  go  through 
in  life  so  many  ills." J 

It  is  idle,  then,  to  look  for  anything  in  the  world  which 
shows  an  intelligible  end.  "  For  verily  not  by  design  did 
the  first-beginnings  of  things  station  themselves  each  in 
its  right  place  by  keen  intelligence,  nor  did  they  bargain, 
sooth  to  say,  what  motions  each  should  assume;  but 
because  the  first-beginnings  of  things,  many  in  number, 

1  Lucretius,  V,  1,  2OO. 


The  Later  Ethical  Period  131 

in  many  ways,  impelled  by  blows  for  infinite  ages  back, 
and  kept  in  motion  by  their  own  weight,  have  been  wont 
to  be  carried  along  and  to  unite  in  all  manner  of  ways 
and  thoroughly  to  test  every  kind  of  production  possible 
by  their  mutual  combinations  ;  therefore  it  is  that,  spread 
abroad  through  great  time,  after  trying  unions  and  mo- 
tions of  every  kind,  they  at  length  meet  together  in  those 
masses  which  suddenly  brought  together  become  often  the 
rudiments  of  great  things,  of  earth,  sea,  and  heaven,  and 
the  race  of  living  things."  1 

Accordingly,  all  those  events  in  which  men  in  their  igno- 
rance have  seen  the  finger  of  God,  must  be  deposed  from 
their  high  place.  There  is  the  lightning  e.g.,  the  dreaded 
thunderbolt  of  Jove ;  it  is  a  purely  natural  fact  —  fire,  it 
may  be,  struck  out  by  the  chance  collision  of  the  clouds. 
Who,  indeed,  can  see  a  divine  judgment  in  that  which 
strikes  down  the  innocent  and  guilty  alike ;  which  buries 
itself  harmlessly  in  desert,  and  forest,  and  sea  ;  which  does 
not  even  spare  the  holy  sanctuaries  of  the  Gods,  and  the 
images  of  Zeus  himself  ?  And  if  we  do  not  have  to  fear 
the  vengeance  of  the  Gods  in  this  life,  no  more  is  there 
any  reason  why  we  should  look  forward  to  punishment  in 
another  world.  This  fear  of  hell  seems  to  the  Epicurean 
one  of  the  greatest  evils  which  religion  brings  in  its  train  ; 
not  only  is  it  a  source  of  mental  disquiet,  but  it  is  an  actual 
provocative  of  crime.  But  for  hell,  there  is  no  place  in 
the  world  which  science  knows.  "  No  Tantalus  in  a  lower 
world  fears  the  huge  stone  that  hangs  over  him ;  the  true 
Tantalus  is  he  who  vexes  himself  by  a  baseless  dread  of 
the  Gods,  and  fears  such  fall  of  luck  as  chance  brings  to 
him."2  Eternity,  indeed,  for  anything,  except  for  the  ulti- 
mate atoms,  is  a  vain  imagination.  All  things  are  for- 
ever changing;  and  just  as  even  stones  are  conquered  by 
time,  huge  towers  fall,  and  rocks  moulder  away,  so  this 
whole  visible  universe  has  within  it  the  seeds  of  decay, 
and  one  day  shall  come  to  naught,  and  give  place  to  a 

1  Lucretius,  V,  1.  420.  2  III,  1.  980. 


132        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

wholly  different  world  which  the  never-tiring  atoms  will 
construct. 

Still  more  mortal  and  unenduring  is  the  soul  of  man. 
Born  with  the  body  —  else  we  should  remember  something 
of  its  prior  life,  —  changing  with  the  body's  changes,  thrown 
into  disorder  by  the  most  trifling  sickness  or  accident — how 
are  we  to  imagine  that  this  subtle  breath,  which  is  so  light 
and  airy  that  its  loss  at  death  makes  not  a  particle  of  dif- 
ference to  the  body's  weight,  is  to  continue  to  exist  when, 
deprived  of  the  body's  protection,  it  must  battle  by  itself 
against  the  fierce  winds  and  tempests  ?  Or  in  what  could  its 
life  consist,  bereft  of  all  the  senses  through  which  we  get 
our  knowledge  of  things?  If,  then,  death  for  us  ends  all, 
why  should  we  fear  it  ?  There  are  no  evils  it  can  bring 
us,  for  there  is  no  life  or  consciousness  in  the  grave  to 
which  we  go.  As  in  time  gone  by,  before  our  birth,  we  felt 
no  distress  when  the  world  was  convulsed  with  wars,  so 
at  our  death  dust  will  return  to  dust,  and  there  will  be 
an  end  of  all  our  cares.  "  Where  we  are,  death  is  not  yet ; 
and  where  death  comes,  there  we  are  not."  "  Now  no 
more  shall  thy  house  admit  thee  with  glad  welcome,  nor  a 
most  virtuous  wife  and  sweet  children  run  to  be  the  first 
to  snatch  kisses  and  touch  thy  heart  with  a  silent  joy.  No 
more  mayest  thou  be  prosperous  in  thy  doings,  a  safeguard 
to  thine  own.  One  disastrous  day  has  taken  from  thee, 
luckless  man,  in  luckless  wise,  all  the  many  prizes  of  life. 
This  do  men  say,  but  add  not  thereto  :  And  now  no  longer 
does  any  craving  for  these  things  beset  thee  withal.  This 
question  therefore  should  be  asked  of  this  speaker :  What, 
then,  is  in  it  so  passing  bitter  if  it  come  in  the  end  to  sleep 
and  rest,  that  any  one  should  pine  in  never-ending  sorrow  ? 
This  too  men  often,  when  they  have  reclined  at  table,  cup 
in  hand,  and  shade  their  brows  with  crowns,  love  to  say 
from  the  heart :  Short  is  this  enjoyment  for  poor  weak 
men;  presently  it  will  have  been,- and  never  after  may  it  be 
called  back.  As  if  after  their  death  it  is  to  be  one  of  their 
chiefest  afflictions  that  thirst  and  parching  drought  is  to 


The  Later  Ethical  Period  133 

burn  them  up,  hapless  wretches,  or  a  craving  for  anything 
else  is  to  beset  them.  What  folly  !  no  one  feels  the  want 
of  himself  and  life  at  the  time  when  mind  and  body  are 
together  sunk  in  sleep  ;  for  all  we  care  this  sleep  might  be 
everlasting,  no  craving  whatever  for  ourselves  then  moves 
us."1 

In  spite,  however,  of  thus  rejecting  alike  the  threats  and 
the  consolations  of  religion,  Epicurus  does  not  deny  alto- 
gether the  existence  of  the  Gods.  His  theory  of  knowledge, 
adopted  from  Democritus,  which  requires  for  perception 
and  thought  alike  an  objective  cause,  in  the  shape  of  filmy 
images  which  objects  continually  are  shedding,  leads  him 
to  accept  the  real  existence  of  divine  and  glorious  forms, 
to  account  for  man's  belief  in  them.  But  such  Gods  are 
neither  to  be  feared  nor  loved.  Living  a  calm  and  unruffled 
life  in  the  interspaces  of  the  heavenly  regions,  away  from 
the  whirl  and  jar  of  stars  and  worlds,  "  where  neither  winds 
do  shake  nor  clouds  drench  with  rains,  nor  snow  congealed 
by  sharp  frost  harms  with  hoary  fall,  an  ever  cloudless 
ether  overcanopies  them,  and  they  laugh  with  light  shed 
largely  round.  Nature  supplies  all  their  wants,  and  noth- 
ing ever  impairs  their  peace  of  mind."  2  Enjoying  perfect 
felicity,  they  feel  no  concern  for  human  things ;  the  good 
and  ill  of  the  world  alike  fail  to  move  them  ;  wrapped  in 
eternal  repose,  in  want  of  nothing  from  us,  they  are 
neither  to  be  gained  by  our  prayers,  nor  stirred  by  us  to 
anger. 

Accordingly,  notwithstanding  the  way  in  which  Epicu- 
reanism allied  itself  with  the  scientific  view  of  the  world,  it 
was  lacking  in  the  genuine  scientific  temper,  and  was  devoid 
of  fruitful  results.  Its  attitude  was  throughout  dogmatic. 
Its  interest  lay,  not  in  getting  at  truth  for  its  own  sake,  but 
in  bolstering  up  the  particular  view  of  life  which  it  wished 
to  adopt.  In  consequence,  it  lays  but  little  stress  on  the 
details  of  scientific  explanation.  Certainty  is  not  attainable, 
or  even  very  much  to  be  desired.  A  phenomenon  might 

1  Lucretius,  III,  1.  907.  2  III,  1.  19. 


134        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

very  well  be  explained  in  more  ways  than  one,  and  it  makes 
little  difference  which  explanation  we  choose  to  adopt,  so 
long  as  it  enables  us  to  exclude  the  supernatural.  One 
point  in  particular  shows  that  Epicurus  had  not  the  purely 
scientific  interest  at  heart.  The  essential  thing  in  Democri- 
tus'  theory  is  his  conception  of  the  atoms  as  rigidly  subjected 
to  mechanical  law.  But  it  is  just  the  element  of  the  su- 
premacy of  law,  which  Epicurus  fails  to  retain,  and  which  is 
actually  repellent  to  him,  because  it  seems  to  put  a  barrier 
in  the  way  of  individual  freedom.  "  It  would  be  better  to 
believe  the  fables  about  the  Gods,  than  be  a  slave  to  the 
fate  taught  by  the  physical  philosophers ;  for  the  theologi- 
cal myth  gives  a  faint  hope  of  averting  the  wrath  of  God 
by  giving  him  honor,  while  the  fate  of  the  philosophers  is 
deaf  to  all  supplications."  J  Accordingly,  as  the  centre  of 
his  ethical  theory  is  the  individual,  with  the  full  right  and 
liberty  to  do  as  he  pleases,  so  he  feels  that  he  must  find 
the  basis  for  this  freedom  in  the  nature  of  things  them- 
selves. And  when,  therefore,  he  comes  to  account  for  the 
beginning  of  the  world  process,  he  introduces  a  feature 
which  is  inconsistent  with  Democritus'  conception.  For 
as  all  things  naturally  fall  downward  in  a  parallel  direction, 
and  fall  equally  fast  so  long  as  there  is  nothing  to  oppose 
them,  they  never  would  come  in  contact,  were  it  not  for  an 
original  deviation  from  a  straight  line,  which  must  have 
been  voluntary  and  uncaused.  The  result  of  this  is,  that 
certain  atoms  clash,  and  so  set  up  the  world  process. 
This  notion  of  freedom,  or  free  will,  as  something  entirely 
uncaused  and  unmotived,  due  solely  to  an  arbitrary  fiat, 
later  came  to  play  a  rather  important  part  in  the  history 
of  thought. 

3.  Some  of  the  reasons  for  the  success  which  Epicurus' 
teaching  met,  have  already  been  suggested.  It  offers  a 
clear-cut  conception  of  life,  which  is  intelligible  to  the  aver- 
age man,  in  his  average  moods.  It  is  easily  formulated, 
is  free  from  mystical  and  transcendental  elements,  and 

1Diog.  Laertius,  Life  of  Epicurus,  §  27. 


The  Later  Ethical  Period  135 

calls  for  no  flights  of  moral  or  intellectual  enthusiasm. 
But  this  constitutes  also  its  limitation.  The  charges  of 
sensuality  and  loose  living,  frequently  brought  against 
Epicurus  himself,  were  certainly  far  from  being  true  ;  and 
while,  in  later  times,  many  who  called  themselves  Epicu- 
reans made  his  doctrine  an  excuse  for  an  unregulated 
pursuit  of  pleasure,  this  is  by  no  means  characteristic  of 
the  stricter  members  of  the  school,  nor  is  it  countenanced 
by  the  words  of  the  founder.  Pleasure  and  virtue  are 
synonymous  with  Epicurus ;  it  is  impossible  to  live  pleas- 
antly, without  living  wisely  and  well  and  justly;  and  it  is 
impossible  to  live  wisely  and  well  and  justly,  without 
living  pleasantly.  It  may  be  argued,  it  is  true,  that  there 
is  really  nothing  in  Epicurus'  premises,  which  can  fairly 
be  opposed  to  any  indulgence  in  pleasure,  provided  it  be 
pursued  judiciously,  and  with  due  regard  to  consequences. 
That  all  pleasure  is  in  so  far  a  good,  Epicurus  cannot 
deny  ;  and  therefore  a  man  is  bound  to  get  as  much  as  he 
can,  without  prejudice  to  the  future  course  of  his  life.  Nor 
are  there  any  barriers  of  right  and  wrong  which  he  can 
oppose  to  the  pursuit  of  pleasure,  apart  from  this  same 
criterion  of  expediency  or  prudence.  To  be  sure,  acts  of 
injustice  are  opposed  to  certain  prejudices  on  the  part 
of  mankind  at  large,  and  so,  if  they  are  detected,  will 
meet  with  punishment.  But  these  moral  prejudices  are, 
for  the  philosopher,  theoretically  a  matter  of  convention. 
What  if  one  can  commit  a  crime,  and  reap  the  benefits 
without  discovery ;  is  there  any  reason  why  he  should 
refrain  from  gratifying  his  desires  in  the  unconventional 
way  ?  All  that  Epicurus  can  answer  is  that,  even  if 
the  criminal  is  not  found  out,  the  possibility  of  detection 
will  always  be  present,  and,  by  rendering  him  continually 
uneasy,  will  destroy  that  peace  of  mind  in  which  happiness 
consists. 

It  is  not,  however,  the  flagrant  abuses  to  which  it  may 
lead,  which  constitutes  the  great  weakness  of  Epicurean- 
ism, but  rather  the  flabbiness  of  moral  fibre  which  it 


136        A  Students  History  of  Philosophy 

reveals,  even  when  it  is  at  its  best.  It  is,  as  Cicero  calls  it, 
a  bourgeois  philosophy ;  the  very  virtues  which  it  calls  for 
have  only  to  be  turned  at  another  angle  to  seem  common- 
place. Cheerfulness  of  mind,  pleasant  conversation,  a  life 
ordered  by  good  taste  and  aesthetic  moderation,  are  good 
in  themselves ;  but  they  are  won  at  the  expense  of  the 
more  positive  and  manly  qualities.  Heroism,  self-sacrifice, 
an  honest  enthusiasm  for  the  noble  and  true  in  conduct, 
or  even  in  art  —  for  these  things  Epicureanism  has  no 
place,  if  it  does  not  actually  disparage  them.  It  sets  its 
face  against  ambition,  and  money-getting,  and  vulgar 
pleasure-seeking,  not  because  there  is  a  worthier  life  for 
man  to  lead,  but  because  there  is  nothing  after  all  that  is 
worth  while.  I  am  no  doubt  a  fool  if  I  weary  myself 
with  striving  after  wealth  and  luxury,  fame  and  position ; 
but  I  should  be  equally  a  fool  if  I  were  to  delude  myself 
with  fine  phrases  about  virtue  and  humanity,  patriotism 
and  duty,  and  seek  to  get  satisfaction  by  going  out  to  right 
the  wrongs  of  the  world,  and  to  be  a  benefactor  to  human 
kind.  "  It  is  not  our  business  to  work  for  crowns  by 
saving  the  Greeks,  but  to  enjoy  ourselves  in  good  eating 
and  drinking."  What  difference  does  it  make  to  me  how 
the  world  goes,  so  long  as  there  is  a  quiet  spot  in  which  I 
may  recline,  a  crust  to  eat,  and  a  friend  to  talk  with  ? 
I  will  lie  back,  and  watch  the  current  of  the  world's  misery, 
as  from  a  safe  shelter  on  the  shore  I  might  watch  a  tem- 
pest-driven vessel,  taking  a  mild  satisfaction  in  the  thought 
that  it  is  some  one  else's  peril,  not  my  own.  Such  a  con- 
ception of  life  is  crystallized  in  the  Epicurean  notion  of 
the  Gods,  as  they  sit  beside  their  nectar,  careless  of  man- 
kind, and  paying  no  heed  to  the  cries  of  agony  from  the 
downtrodden  race  of  men  below.  That  such  a  conception 
should  seem  the  highest  ideal  of  life,  and  that  the  Epicu- 
rean should  find  it  unthinkable  that  one  who  had  the 
power  of  attaining  such  felicity,  should  voluntarily  take 
upon  himself  cares  and  responsibilities  for  the  sake  of 
others,  is  his  severest  condemnation. 


The  Later  Ethical  Period  137 

LITERATURE 

Zeller,  Epicureans,  Stoics,  and  Sceptics. 

Lucretius,  De  Natura  Rerum. 

Wallace,  Epicureanism. 

Courtney,  Epicureanism  (in  Hellenica). 

Pater,  Marius  the  Epicurean. 

Horace,  Odes. 

Masson,  The  Atomic  Theory  of  Lucretius. 

Watson,  Hedonistic  Theories. 

§15.   Zeno.     The  Stoics 

If  Epicureanism  was  of  a  nature  to  appeal  strongly 
to  the  world  weariness  of  the  Roman  courtier  under  the 
Empire,  when  despotic  power  had  come  as  a  relief  to  inces- 
sant civil  war,  and  experience  of  the  corruption  of  Roman 
society  had  dulled  the  edge,  in  less  strenuous  minds,  of  any 
pronounced  belief  in  virtue,  it  was  a  very  different  sort  of 
philosophy  that  would  recommend  itself  to  the  typical 
Roman  of  the  Republic,  and  to  those  men  who  carried  on 
the  traditions  of  the  Republic.  The  same  intellectual 
temper  which  in  public  life  produced  a  Cato,  received 
expression  in  the  world  of  philosophy  as  Stoicism.  It  is 
true  that  Stoicism  is  not  Roman  in  its  origin.  But  neither 
is  it  wholly  Greek,  although  Athens,  as  the  intellectual 
centre  of  the  world,  was  naturally  chosen  by  Zeno  (340- 
265  B.C.),  the  founder  of  the  school,  as  the  most  fitting 
place  in  which  to  establish  himself  as  a  teacher.  Zeno 
was  himself,  however,  a  merchant  of  Cyprus,  and  probably 
of  Semitic  origin ;  and  nearly  all  the  succeeding  heads  of 
the  school  were  also  born  outside  of  Greece ;  so  that  the 
more  ascetic  temper  which  Stoicism  displays,  may  perhaps 
be  traced  in  part  to  this  Oriental  strain.  At  all  events, 
Stoicism  offered,  to  the  nobler  minds  of  the  day,  a  welcome 
refuge  from  the  trivialities  and  anarchy  of  the  life  which 
surrounded  them  ;  and  it  succeeded  in  evolving  a  type  of 
character  and  belief,  superior  in  some  respects  to  anything 
else  that  the  ancient  world  produced. 


138         A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

i.  Metaphysics.  —  Objectively,  the  Stoic  philosophy  is 
aiming  at  a  result  which  has  many  points  of  contact  with  Epi- 
cureanism. For  both,  the  true  end  of  life  might  be  described 
as  freedom  from  disturbing  desires,  and  from  the  pressure  of 
external  wants;  and  a  discipline  of  the  mind  that  should 
enable  it  to  find  satisfaction  within  itself.  For  both,  the 
attaining  of  this  end  is  the  one  aim  of  philosophy,  which  thus 
is  severely  practical  in  its  nature.  But  the  ieal_meanmg  of 
the  end,  and  the  attitude  of  mind  for  which  it  called,  were  in 
the  two  cases  wholly  different.  As  the  Epicurean  went 
back  to  Aristippus,  and  his  doctrine  of  pleasure  as  the  end  of 
life,  so  the  Stoics  connected  themselves  with  that  develop- 
ment of  Socrates'  thought,  which,  in  the  Cynics,  made  vir- 
tue the  highest  good.  But  whereas  the  Cynics  stopped 
with  negative  results,  and  so  found  it  difficult  to  give  to 
their  conception  any  definite  content,  in  the  case  of  the 
Stoics  the  possession  of  a  more  adequate  theoretical  ground- 
work introduced  elements  which  helped  correct  the  one- 
sidedness,  not  only  of  their  predecessors,  but  also  of  their 
rivals,  the  Epicureans.  Instead,  that  is,  of  accepting  the 
individualism  and  atomism  of  Epicurus,  they  start  from  the 
other  end.  Reality  is  an  organic  wholCj  an  intimate  combi- 
nation of  form  and  matter,  soul  and  body,  through  which  one 
universal  life  pulsates.  This  connected  whole  is  indiffer- 
ently God,  or  nature.  Since,  then,  man,  like  everything 
else,  constitutes  a  part  of  the  universal  nature,  conform- 
ity to  nature  becomes  a  formula  which  has  in  it  the  pos- 
sibility of  giving  a  real  content  to  the  life  of  virtue.  It 
is  true  the  negative  interpretation  of  the  life  of  nature, 
which  it  had  with  the  Cynics,  still  persists  very  largely, 
and  dictates  the  character  of  the  Stoic  teaching  on  its 
more  paradoxical  side.  But  still  the  positive  conception 
lies  back  of  this,  and  becomes  eventually  more  prominent. 
The  mere  protest  against  convention,  and  the  emphasis  on 
ascetic  endurance,  is  transmuted  into  a  positive  law  of  duty. 
The  knowledge  in  which  virtue  consists,  becomes  a  knowl- 
edge of  the  true  nature  of  things;  and  virtuous  conduct, 


The  Later  Ethical  Period  139 

such  conduct  as  will  further  the  life  of  nature — of  that 
whole  to  which  we  belong  as  parts,  and  which  is  interpre- 
table  in  terms  of  our  rational  life. 

Before  examining  this  ideal  more  carefully,  a  few  words 
may  be  added  to  complete  the  account  of  the  general  meta- 
physical theory  of  the  school.  The  conception  of  the  uni- 
verse as  a  whole,  instead  of  as  a  mere  collection  of  atomic 
elements,  implies  the  reality  of  its  rationality,  or  what 
Plato  calls  the  Idea.  But  the  Stoic  agrees  with  Aristotle 
in  denying  that  the  two  things,  matter  and  form,  are  at  all 
separate.  Meaning  exists  in  the  world,  not  in  the  realm 
beyond  it.  Even  Aristotle,  however,  had  ended  up  with 
pure  form,  as  something  entirely  separate  from  matter. 
The  Stoics  get  rid  of  all  transcendentalism  whatever,  by 
reducing  form  itself  to  matter.  The  result  is  a  material- 
istic pantheism.  The  world  of  material  nature  is  the  sole 
reality;  but  it  is  not  dead  matter.  It  is  living,  informed  by 
a  rational  soul;  and  so  is  God.  This  soul  of  the  world,  the 
Logos,  or  rational  principle,  is  everywhere  present  as  a 
more  active  and  subtle  kind  of  matter;  just  as  the  human 
soul  is  present  in  the  body,  ruling  and  directing  it  to  rational 
ends.  Indeed,  what  we  call  the  soul — pnenma,  breath  or 
spirit — is  but  a  part  of  this  world  soul,  participating  in  its 
rational  qualities,  and  received  back  finally  into  the  uni- 
versal reason,  where  its  individuality  is  lost. 

In  opposition,  therefore,  to  the  explanation  of  the  world 
processes  by  chance  or  mechanism,  the  Stoic  conception 
is  throughout  teleological.  Everything  flows  of  necessity 
from  the  nature  of  the  whole ;  and  since  that  whole  is 
Reason,  everything  has  its"~place  in  an  intelligible  scheme. 
The  combination  of  so  thoroughly  idealistic  a  tendency 
with  outspoken  materialism  —  a  materialism  which  argues 
that  an  emotion,  e.g.,  is  matter,  since  it  would  have  no 
power  to  move  a  man  unless  it  came  in  spatial  contact 
with  him  —  does  indeed  give  rise  to  serious  difficulties.  It 
shows  the  decline  of  first-rate  philosophical  insight,  that 
men  were  able  to  ignore  these  difficulties,  and  rest  content 


140        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

with  so  crude  a  metaphysic.  But  here,  also,  practical  needs 
were  uppermost.  For  a  philosophy  that  was  to  prove  a 
real  guide  to  men,  in  a  life  which  needed  such  guidance, 
the  Ideal  of  Plato  was  too  remote  ;  it  must  be  brought  down 
to  the  actual  world,  even  at  the  risk  of  losing  something 
from  the  standpoint  of  theory. 

2.  The  Ethical  Ideal. — With  this  general  sketch  of  the 
Stoic  metaphysics,  we  may  turn  again  to  their  ethical  concep- 
tion. First,  then,  virtue  is  knowledge.  But  this  does  not 
mean,  as  it  does  with  Aristotle,  that  the  highest  end  of  life  is 
pure  contemplation.  Knowledge,  for  the  Stoics,  is  practical 
knowledge  —  knowledge  which  grows  out  of  the  needs  of 
conduct.  Accordingly,  the  Stoic  has  but  little  respect  for 
much  that  passes  for  learning  and  philosophy  in  the  world. 
"What  does  it  concern  us  which  was  the  older  of  the 
two,  Homer  or  Hesiod ;  or  which  was  the  taller,  Helen 
or  Hecuba?  We  take  a  great  deal  of  pains  to  trace 
Ulysses  in  his  wanderings,  but  were  it  not  time  as  well 
spent  to  look  to  ourselves,  that  we  may  not  wander  at 
all  ?  Geometry  teaches  me  the  art  of  measuring  acres ; 
teach  me  to  measure  my  appetites,  and  to  know  when  I 
have  enough.  Were  not  I  a  madman  to  sit  wrangling 
about  words,  and  putting  of  nice  and  impertinent  ques- 
tions, when  the  enemy  has  already  made  the  breach,  and 
the  town  is  fired  over  my  head  ?  The  wisdom  of  the 
ancients  was  no  more  than  certain  precepts,  what  to  do 
and  what  not,  and  men  were  much  better  in  that  simplic- 
ity ;  for  as  they  came  to  be  more  learned,  they  grew  less 
careful  of  being  good."  1 

Once  more,  then,  virtue  is  the  sole  end  of  man,  and  of 
philosophy ;  and  since  reason  is  the  essential  part  of  man, 
the  life  of  virtue  is  the  life  of  reason.  But  what  is  the 
relation  of  reason  to  the  lower,  appetitive  nature,  which 
also  forms  a  part  of  man  ?  In  answering  this  question, 
the  Stoics  introduce  an  innovation  into  the  psychology  of 
Plato  and  Aristotle.  Instead  of  making  the  desires  and 

i  Letter^  XIII,  3. 


The  Later  Ethical  Period  141 

emotions  constitute,  as  in  Plato,  a  second  and  separate  part 
of  the  soul,  standing  over  against  the  reason,  they  repre- 
sent them  rather  as  a  disease,  an  imperfection,  a  disturb- 
ance of  the  reason  itself.  And  from  this  an  important 
ethical  result  follows.  The  emotions  are  not  something, 
as  with  Aristotle,  to  be  simply  regulated  and  held  in  check 
by  the  reason ;  they  must  be  destroyed  utterly.  As  a 
disease,  emotion  is  not  to  be  tolerated  for  a  moment  If 
we  give  it  ever  so  slight  a  foothold,  it  is  bound  to  grow, 
and  spread  its  contagion.  The  true  ethical  ideal,  there- 
fore, is  entire  freedom  from  the  emotions.  It  is  not  a 
question  of  tempering  one's  passions ;  that  is  to  rest  satis- 
fied with  being  only  a  little  mad,  a  little  sick.  The  wise 
man  must  aim  at  perfect  health  of  soul ;  he  must  have  no 
passions  at  all.  But  may  we  not  be  sad  in  adversity,  or 
pity  a  friend  in  distress  ?  Relieve  our  friend,  by  all  means; 
but  as  for  indulging  in  pity,  no.  Such  a  thing  seems 
harmless ;  but  as  sure  as  we  give  way  to  it,  we  shall  find  it 
gaining  strength,  and  becoming  ungovernable.  Pity,  too, 
is  apt  to  make  a  man  bungle  in  his  work,  and  thus  actually 
to  defeat  its  own  end.  It  is  true,  so  at  least  the  later 
Stoics  had  to  admit,  that  there  are  certain  weaknesses 
of  the  flesh  —  the  blush  that  rises  unbidden  to  the  cheek, 
the  instinctive  shrinking  before  pain  and  suffering  — 
which  I  may  not  be  able  wholly  to  control ;  but  these 
are  no  more  than  affections  of  the  body,  and  need  not 
touch  the  mind,  unless  the  mind  itself  shall  so  permit. 
An  emotion  is  a  disturbance  of  the  mind;  and  over  that 
the  mind  has  full  control,  and  may  give  or  withhold  its 
consent. 

True  virtue  and  happiness,  then,  will  consist  in  living 
free  and  undisturbed  ;  and  that  will  only  be  possible,  as  we 
refuse  to  allow  our  will  to  be  coerced  by  those  external  things 
and  events,  which  lie  outside  the  power  of  the  mind  itself. 
Let  us  recognize  that  that  only  is  an  evil  which  we  choose 
to  regard  as  such  ;  if  we  refuse,  then,  to  call  it  evil,  it  may, 
indeed,  harm  our  body,  but  it  cannot  touch  our  real  self. 


142        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

"  Consider  that  everything  is  opinion,  and  opinion  is  in  thy 
power.  Take  away  then,  when  thou  choosest,  thy  opinion, 
and  like  a  mariner  who  has  doubled  the  promontory,  thou 
wilt  find  calm,  everything  stable,  and  a  waveless  bay."  1 
"  Take  away  thy  opinion,  and  then  there  is  taken  away  the 
complaint :  I  have  been  harmed.  Take  away  the  com- 
plaint :  I  have  been  harmed,  and  the  harm  is  done 
away."2  Instead  of  striving  to  win  this  and  avoid  that,  let 
us  rid  ourselves  of  the  desires  which  make  things  attractive 
or  dreadful.  It  is  the  good  fortune  of  the  wise  man  not 
to  need  any  good  fortune.  "  One  prays  thus  :  How  shall 
I  be  released  of  this ;  another  thus  :  How  shall  I  not  de- 
sire to  be  released.  Another  thus  :  How  shall  I  not  lose 
my  little  son?  Thou  thus:  How  shall  I  not  be  afraid  to 
lose  him  ?  Turn  thy  prayers  this  way,  and  see  what 
comes."  3  That  only  is  a  real  evil,  which  degrades  the  soul 
from  its  true  dignity;  and  that  only  a  good,  which  enables 
the  soul  to  stand  fast  in  its  integrity.  "  Soon  thou  wilt  be 
ashes  or  a  skeleton,  and  either  a  name,  or  not  a  name  even. 
And  the  things  which  are  much  valued  in  life  are  empty 
and  rotten  and  trifling,  and  like  little  dogs  biting  one 
another,  and  little  children  quarrelling  and  laughing,  and 
then  straightway  weeping."4  What  is  pleasure,  for  which 
men  fight  and  die  ?  Transitory,  tiresome,  sickly,  it  scarce 
outlives  the  tasting  of  it.  "  I  am  seeking,"  says  Seneca, 
"  to  find  what  is  good  for  a  man,  not  for  his  belly.  Why, 
cattle  and  whales  have  larger  ones  than  he."5  Are  we 
taken  with  a  life  of  luxury  and  outward  show  ?  "  As  we 
sit  at  table,  let  us  consider  that  this  is  but  the  dead  body 
of  a  fish,  that  the  dead  body  of  a  bird  or  of  a  pig ;  and, 
again,  that  this  Falernian  is  only  a  little  grape  juice,  and 
this  purple  robe  some  sheep's  wool  dyed  with  the  blood  of 
a  shellfish."6  Or  do  we  work  for  fame,  that  future  gen- 
erations may  praise  us  ?  Let  us  remember  that  men  of  after 

1 M.  Aurelius,  Thoughts,  XII,  22.  2  Ibid.,  IV,  7. 

8  Ibid.,  IX,  40.  <  Ibid.,  V,  33. 

6  Seneca,  Dialogues,  VII,  9.  6  Thoughts,  VI,  13. 


T/te  Later  Ethical  Period  143 

times  will  be  exactly  such  as  those  whom  now  we  de- 
spise and  cannot  endure,  just  as  foolish  and  unthinking, 
just  as  short-lived.  Let  us,  then,  stand  steadfast  in 
the  faith  that  nothing  can  harm  us,  unless  we  ourselves 
open  the  gate  to  the  enemy ;  that  nothing  is  necessary, 
save  those  inner  possessions  of  which  no  one  can  rob 
us. 

Such  an  ideal  of  character  —  the  ideal  of  the  wise  man,  or 
sage  —  is,  however,  in  danger  of  becoming  somewhat  stern 
and  unlovely  in  its  nature.  In  the  rigor  of  their  concep- 
tion, the  Stoics  seemed  to  make  no  allowance  for  the 
frailty  of  human  nature.  As  in  the  later  Christian  doc- 
trine, a  man  was  either  wholly  saved  or  wholly  lost,  perfect 
and  complete,  or  else  with  no  good  thing  in  him ;  just  as  a 
stick  is  either  straight  or  crooked,  and  there  is  no  middle 
alternative.  The  man  who  is  a  hundred  furlongs  from 
Canopus,  and  the  man  who  is  only  one,  are  both  equally 
not  in  Canopus.  For  virtues  are  not  many,  but  one,  since 
all  go  back  to  the  inner  unity  of  the  will  which  alone 
is  good,  and  to  the  attitude  which  this  adopts.  If,  there- 
fore, the  will  is  sound,  the  man  possesses  at  one  stroke  all 
possible  goods  and  perfections ;  if  it  is  weak  in  one  point, 
it  is  weak  in  all,  for  no  chain  is  stronger  than  its  weakest 
link.  The  Stoics  speak  of  the  sage,  accordingly,  in  the 
most  extravagant  terms ;  since  all  goods  are  one,  he  alone 
is  just,  wise,  beautiful,  brave,  a  king,  an  orator,  rich,  a 
legislator.  So,  also,  there  is  no  gradual  progress  toward 
virtue.  The  wise  man  becomes  wise  by  a  sudden  conver- 
sion, which  in  a  single  moment  bridges  the  gulf  between 
total  depravity  and  perfection.  Accordingly,  the  world 
becomes  divided  between  the  two  classes :  the  sages,  a 
scattered  few,  and  the  vast  multitude  of  men,  mostly  fools. 
And  the  tendency  was  strong  to  make  this  division  a  source 
of  Pharisaic  pride,  and  to  transfer  the  contemptuous  dis- 
regard in  which  outer  things  were  held  to  the  men  also 
who  took  delight  in  these  things  —  that  is,  to  mankind  in 
general. 


144        -d  Students  History  of  Philosophy 

But  time  tended  to  soften  the  asperity  of  this  attitude. 
The  ideal  sage,  in  his  perfection,  was  too  rare  a  phenom- 
enon in  the  world,  and  the  failure  of  the  average  Stoic  to 
live  up  to  the  standard  thus  set,  was  too  obvious  to  himself 
and  to  his  opponents  alike ;  and  so  concessions  necessarily 
were  made.  It  had  to  be  allowed  that,  after  all,  there  are 
various  grades  of  attainment,  and  that  one  is  higher  than 
another.  So  also,  it  was  found  impossible,  without  too 
great  paradox,  to  hold  that  the  good  will  is  the  only  good 
in  the  world,  and  that  everything  else  is  wholly  indifferent. 
Common  sense  will  never  admit  that  health  and  fortune, 
because  they  are  more  or  less  fortuitous,  and  can  at  a  pinch 
be  dispensed  with,  have  therefore  lost  entirely  the  claim 
to  be  called  good,  and  are  quite  on  a  level  with  disease 
and  penury.  Accordingly,  in  addition  to  the  absolutely 
good  and  evil,  the  Stoics  were  led  to  make  a  distinction 
between  those  external  things  which  tend  to  promote  the 
good  life,  and  supply  it  with  material,  and  those  which 
have  the  opposite  tendency.  And  it  was  admitted  that, 
although  the  former  are  not  good  in  the  proper  and  ulti- 
mate sense,  they  yet  are  good  in  a  secondary  way,  and 
relatively  ;  while  the  term  "  indifferent "  was  now  applied  to 
the  third  and  more  limited  class  of  things,  which  are 
recognized  by  common  sense  as  having  no  important 
bearing  on  our  lives.  Indeed,  the  assertion  that  pleasure 
and  pain  are  absolutely  indifferent  and  on  an  equality, 
is  obviously  only  a  paradoxical  overstatement  of  certain 
truths  which,  stripped  of  exaggeration,  would  be  gener- 
ally admitted ;  apart  from  these,  it  would  carry  no  convic- 
tion at  all.  The  elements  of  truth  in  it  are,  of  course, 
that  pain  may  be  endured  with  cheerfulness  by  the 
brave  man  when  it  is  inevitable,  and  even  welcomed  when 
it  is  a  step  toward  some  higher  good  ;  that  pleasure  is 
subordinate  to  character,  and  unworthy  to  engross  the  affec- 
tions, and  stand  in  the  way  of  the  life  of  virtue.  And 
while  the  Stoic  always  retains  his  tendency  to  paradox, 
this  more  moderate  attitude  comes  to  be  adopted  also  on 


The  Later  Ethical  Period  145 

occasion.  The  desirable  thing  is  not  to  have  the  fire 
burn  me,  —  that  I  would  willingly  avoid  if  I  could, — but 
that  it  cannot  conquer  me.  Pleasure  is  not  wholly  to  be 
disdained.  It  is  true,  virtue  remains  the  final  aim.  But 
still,  if  pleasure  follows  virtue  naturally,  it  may  be  wel- 
comed ;  "  as  in  a  tilled  field,  when  ploughed  for  corn,  some 
flowers  are  found  amongst  it,  and  yet,  though  these  may 
charm  the  eye,  all  this  labor  was  not  spent  in  order  to 
produce  them."1 

This  tendency  toward  softening  the  harsh  contrasts  in 
the  Stoic  system,  and  making  it  more  human,  was  helped 
out  by  an  idea  contained  in  the  Stoic  metaphysics.  So 
far,  we  might  seem  to  have  an  ideal  of  life  as  self-centred 
and  individualistic  as  that  of  Epicurus.  But  in  the  con- 
ception, already  mentioned,  of  the  universal  nature,  there 
was  the  possibility  of  a  more  adequate  development,  which 
assumed  greater  prominence  in  the  school  as  time  went 
on.  The  Pharisaic  opposition  of  the  sage  to  the  fool 
became  tempered  by  the  thought  of  the  essential  brother- 
hood of  man.  As  entering  into  the  unity  of  nature,  we 
are  all  members  one  of  another ;  every  man  alike,  as  par- 
ticipating in  some  measure  of  reason,  forms  a  part  of  the 
being  of  God.  And  so  a  life  according  to  nature,  as  the 
control  of  the  passions  by  the  reason,  becomes  defined  ob- 
jectively by  the  addition  of  the  very  important  thought,  that 
such  a  life  of  reason  is  a  life  in  and  for  society.  No  man 
can  live  to  himself ;  "  sooner  will  one  find  anything  earthy, 
which  comes  in  contact  with  no  earthy  thing,  than  a  man 
altogether  separated  from  other  men."  2 

A  life,  then,  which  regards  the  life  of  others,  a  life  in 
a  community  or  state,  is  an  essential  element  of  the  life 
of  reason.  To  be  sure,  as  states  then  were  constituted, 
the  Stoic  might  be  excused  from  taking  an  active  part  in 
politics ;  but  theoretically  he  was  still  in  his  private  life 
working  for  the  public  weal.  "The  services  of  a  good 
citizen  are  never  thrown  away;  he  does  good  by  being 

1  Dial.,  VII,  9.  •  Thoughts,  IX,  9. 

L 


146        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

heard  and  seen,  by  his  expression,  his  gestures,  his  silent 
determination,  and  his  very  walk."  *  Nor  is  this  limited,  as 
with  the  ancient  Greek  it  was  limited,  to  one's  own  par- 
ticular state  or. city.  "My  nature,"  says  the  Emperor 
Aurelius,  "is  rational  and  social,  and  my  city  and  my 
country,  so  far  as  I  am  Antoninus,  is  Rome;  but  so  far  as 
I  am  a  man,  it  is  the  world."  2  This  cosmopolitanism,  which 
prided  itself  on  the  sentiment,  I  am  first  of  all  a  man  — 
Homo  sum  —  is  not,  indeed,  the  outcome  of  any  very  vital 
or  deep-seated  feeling.  It  is  a  result  of  the  breaking  down 
of  national  bonds  which  followed  the  empire  of  Alexander, 
and  the  Hellenizing  of  the  world ;  and  it  does  not  neces- 
sarily imply  any  great  sense  of  obligation  toward  man- 
kind. Often  it  is  no  more  than  the  throwing  off  of  na- 
tional responsibilities.  Most  of  the  Stoics,  as  has  been 
said,  were  not  citizens  of  Greece,  but  rather,  in  the  Greek 
sense,  barbarians,  and  so  they  naturally  would  not  find 
it  so  hard  to  enlarge  their  sympathy,  and  recognize  the 
essential  oneness  of  men.  The  superstition  of  birth  had 
begun  to  be  criticised  even  at  an  earlier  period.  "  It  is 
true,"  Antisthenes  had  replied  to  a  slur  upon  his  family 
and  origin,  "that  I  am  not  the  son  of  two  free  citizens; 
but  neither  am  I  the  son  of  two  people  skilled  in  wrest- 
ling, and  nevertheless  I  am  a  skilful  wrestler."  With 
all  its  limitations,  however,  this  cosmopolitanism  shows 
the  growth  of  a  broader  view  of  life,  which  only  had  to 
receive  a  more  positive  meaning  to  bring  about  a  real 
revolution. 

This  conception  of  nature  was  carried  a  step  higher. 
Man  is  not  only  a  citizen  of  the  world ;  he  is  a  part  of  the 
fabric  of  the  universe :  and  with  the  religious  tinge  which 
this  thought  took  on,  is  connected  a  good  deal  of  the  power 
and  attractiveness  of  the  Stoic  system.  Merely  as  a  part 
of  the  universe  of  matter,  man  is  of  necessity  subjected  to 
the  law  of  the  whole,  and  enters  into  the  unvarying  chain 
of  cause  and  effect  which  nature  exhibits.  But  what  might 
*  Dial*  IX,  4.  a  Thoughts,  VI,  44. 


The  Later  Ethical  Period  147 

have  been  the  sting  of  this  conception,  if  nature  were 
looked  at  as  an  unmeaning  play  of  atoms,  with  no  regard 
for  man's  welfare,  becomes  an  added  motive,  as  she  as- 
sumes those  attributes  which  bring  us  into  an  emotional 
relation  to  her,  and  which  enable  us  to  use  the  name  of 
God.  It  is  perfectly  true  that  we  have  no  independence  as 
opposed  to  the  one  great  reality ;  we  are  but  a  part  of  the 
deity  who  acts  in  us.  "  Among  the  animals  who  have  not 
reason,  one  life  is  distributed,  just  as  there  is  one  earth  of 
all  things ;  and  among  reasonable  animals  one  intelligent 
soul  is  distributed,  just  as  we  see  by  one  light,  and  breathe 
one  air."  J  Like  the  course  of  a  river  fate  moves  forward 
in  an  irresistible  stream.  He  knows  little  of  God  that 
imagines  it  may  be  controlled.  There  is  no  changing  the 
purpose  even  of  a  wise  man,  for  he  sees  beforehand  what 
will  be  best  for  the  future.  How  much  more  unchange- 
able, then,  is  the  Almighty,  to  whom  all  future  is  eter- 
nally present.  But  this  also  is  our  comfort.  What  might 
be  hard  to  bear  as  Fate  or  Destiny,  takes  on  another 
aspect  when  we  call  it  by  its  true  name  of  Providence. 
God  alone  knows  what  is  best  for  us,  nor  have  we  any 
right  to  urge  our  private  desires  against  the  good  of  the 
whole.  "  To  her  who  gives  and  takes  back  all,  to  nature, 
the  man  who  is  instructed  and  modest  says :  '  Give  what 
thou  wilt,  take  back  what  thou  wilt.'  And  he  says  this, 
not  proudly,  but  obediently,  and  well  pleased  with  her."2 
Taken  at  its  best,  then,  in  the  person  of  its  more  worthy 
representatives,  Stoicism  offers  an  ideal  of  life  which  has 
rarely  been  surpassed  for  noble  simplicity.  "  I  will  look 
upon  death  or  upon  comedy,"  says  Seneca,  "with  the 
same  expression  of  countenance.  I  will  submit  to  labors 
however  great  they  may  be,  supporting  the  strength  of  my 
body  by  that  of  my  mind.  I  will  despise  riches  when  I 
have  them  as  much  as  when  I  have  them  not.  Whether 
fortune  comes  or  goes,  I  will  take  no  notice  of  her.  I  will 
view  all  lands  as  though  they  belong  to  me,  and  my  own  as 
i /Mi*,  IX,  8.  *Ibid.t  X,  14. 


148        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

though  they  belonged  to  all  mankind.  I  will  so  live  as  to 
remember  that  I  was  born  for  others,  and  will  thank  nature 
on  this  account ;  for  in  what  fashion  could  she  have  done 
better  for  me  ?  She  has  given  me  alone  to  all,  and  all  to 
me  alone.  Whatever  I  may  possess,  I  will  neither  hoard 
it  greedily,  nor  squander  it  recklessly.  I  will  think  that  I 
have  no  possessions  so  real  as  those  which  I  have  given 
away  to  deserving  people.  I  never  will  consider  a  gift  to 
be  a  large  one  if  it  be  bestowed  upon  a  worthy  object.  I 
will  do  nothing  because  of  public  opinion,  but  everything 
because  of  conscience.  Whenever  I  do  anything  alone  by 
myself,  I  will  believe  that  the  eyes  of  the  Roman  people 
are  upon  me  while  I  do  it.  In  eating  and  drinking,  my 
object  shall  be  to  quench  the  desires  of  nature,  not  to  fill 
and  empty  my  belly.  I  will  be  agreeable  with  my  friends, 
gentle  and  mild  to  my  foes.  I  will  grant  pardon  before  I 
am  asked  for  it,  and  will  meet  the  wishes  of  honorable  men 
halfway.  I  will  bear  in  mind  that  the  world  is  my  native 
city,  that  its  governors  are  the  Gods,  and  that  they  stand 
above  and  around  me  criticising  whatever  I  do  or  say. 
When  either  nature  demands  my  breath  again,  or  reason 
bids  me  dismiss  it,  I  will  quit  this  life,  calling  all  to  witness 
that  I  have  loved  a  good  conscience  and  good  pursuits ; 
that  no  one's  freedom,  my  own  least  of  all,  has  been  im- 
paired through  me."  *  So  Epictetus  :  "  My  man,  as  the 
proverb  says,  make  a  desperate  effort  on  behalf  of  tran- 
quillity of  mind,  freedom,  and  magnanimity.  Lift  up  your 
eyes  at  last  as  released  from  slavery.  Dare  to  look  up  to 
God  and  say :  Deal  with  me  for  the  future  as  thou  wilt, 
I  refuse  nothing  that  pleases  thee ;  clothe  me  in  any  dress 
thou  choosest.  Who  would  Hercules  have  been  if  he  had 
sat  at  home  ?  He  would  have  been  Eurystheus,  and  not 
Hercules.  But  you  are  not  Hercules,  and  you  are  not 
able  to  purge  away  the  wickedness  of  others.  Clear  away 
your  own ;  from  yourself,  from  your  thoughts  cast  away, 
instead  of  Procrustes  and  Sciron,  sadness,  fear,  desire, 

1  Dial.,  VII,  20. 


T/ie  Later  Ethical  Period  149 

envy,  malevolence,  avarice,  effeminacy,  intemperance." * 
"  Never  value  anything  as  profitable  to  thyself  which 
shall  compel  thee  to  break  thy  promise,  to  lose  thy  self- 
respect,  to  hate  any  man,  to  suspect,  to  curse,  to  act  the 
hypocrite,  to  desire  anything  which  needs  walls  and  cur- 
tains." 2  A  God  dwells  in  the  breast  of  every  good  man ; 
let  us  not  disgrace  the  abode  of  divinity. 

And  if  once  we  have  attained  this  salvation  and  intreg- 
rity  of  soul,  we  are  able  to  meet  life  cheerfully  and  confi- 
dently, without  fearing  anything  it  can  do  to  us.  Other 
delights  are  trivial  in  comparison  with  this  serene  and 
sober  peace  of  mind.  They  are  greatly  mistaken  who 
take  laughter  for  rejoicing.  The  seat  of  true  joy  is  within, 
and  there  is  no  cheerfulness  like  the  resolution  of  a  brave 
mind  that  has  fortune  under  its  feet.  Virtue  needs  no 
external  rewards.  "  As  a  horse  when  he  has  run,  a  dog 
when  he  has  tracked  the  game,  a  bee  when  it  has  made 
the  honey,  so  a  man  when  he  has  done  a  good  act  does 
not  call  out  for  others  to  come  and  see,  but  he  goes  on  to 
another  act,  as  a  vine  goes  on  to  produce  again  the  grapes 
in  season."  3  The  life  of  virtue  is  all-sufficient.  It  fills 
the  whole  soul,  and  takes  away  the  sensibility  of  any  loss. 
What  matters  it  if  a  stream  be  interrupted  or  cut  off,  if 
the  fountain  from  whence  it  flowed  be  still  alive  ?  As  the 
stars  hide  their  diminished  heads  before  the  brightness  of 
the  sun,  so  afflictions  are  crushed  and  dissipated  by  the 
greatness  of  virtue ;  and  all  manner  of  annoyances  have 
no  more  effect  upon  her,  than  a  shower  of  rain  upon  the 
sea. 

In  the  presence  of  these  true  and  eternal  joys,  mere 
pleasures  seem  poor  and  worthless.  We  are  in  the  world 
not  to  live  pleasantly,  but  to  quit  us  like  men ;  and  in  thus 
acting  in  accordance  with  our  real  nature,  we  shall  derive 
the  only  true  satisfaction.  "  In  the  morning  when  thou 
risest  unwillingly,  let  this  thought  be  present :  I  am  rising 
to  the  work  of  a  human  being.  Why,  then,  am  I  dissatis- 

1  Discourses,  II,  16.  a  Thoughts,  III,  7.  » Ibid,,  V,  6. 


150        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

fied,  if  I  am  going  to  do  the  things  for  which  I  exist,  and 
for  which  I  was  brought  into  the  world  ?  Or  have  I  been 
made  for  this,  to  lie  in  the  bedclothes  and  keep  myself 
warm  ?  But  this  is  more  pleasant.  Dost  thou  exist,  then, 
to  take  thy  pleasure,  and  not  at  all  for  action  or  exertion  ? 
Dost  thou  not  see  the  little  plants,  the  little  birds,  the  ants, 
the  spiders,  the  bees,  working  together  to  put  in  order 
their  several  parts  of  the  universe  ?  and  art  thou  unwilling 
to  do  the  work  of  a  human  being,  and  dost  thou  not  make 
haste  to  do  that  which  is  according  to  thy  nature  P"1  So 
external  advantages,  riches,  and  position,  have  no  real 
value.  It  matters  not  whence  we  come,  but  whither  we 
go.  For  a  man  to  spend  his  life  in  pursuit  of  a  title,  which 
serves  only  when  he  dies  to  furnish  out  an  epitaph,  is  below 
a  wise  man's  business.  It  is  the  edge  and  temper  of  the 
blade  that  makes  a  good  sword,  not  the  richness  of  the 
scabbard ;  and  so  it  is  not  money  and  possessions  that 
makes  a  man  considerable,  but  his  virtue.  "  They  are 
amusing  fellows  who  are  proud  of  things  which  are  not  in 
our  power.  A  man  says  :  I  am  better  than  you,  for  I 
possess  much  land,  and  you  are  wasting  with  hunger. 
Another  says :  I  am  of  consular  rank ;  another :  I  have 
curly  hair.  But  a  horse  does  not  say  to  a  horse  :  I  am 
superior  to  you,  for  I  possess  much  fodder  and  much  bar- 
ley, and  my  bits  are  of  gold,  and  my  harness  is  embroid- 
ered ;  but  he  says  :  I  am  swifter  than  you.  And  every 
animal  is  better  or  worse  from  his  own  merit  or  his  own 
badness.  Is  there,  then,  no  virtue  in  man  only,  and  must 
we  look  to  the  hair  and  our  clothes,  and  to  our  ances- 
tors?"2 Every  man  is  worth  just  as  much  as  the  things 
about  which  he  busies  himself.  Let  our  riches  consist 
in  coveting  nothing,  and  our  peace  in  fearing  nothing. 
Secure,  then,  in  the  eternal  possession  of  himself,  a  man 
can  afford  to  despise  the  buffets  of  fortune,  and  can  even 
welcome  them,  in  the  confidence  that  all  things  are  work- 
ing for  his  good.  It  does  not  matter  what  you  bear,  but 

1  Thoughts,  V,  I.  8Epictetus,  Fragments,  1 6. 


The  Later  Ethical  Period  151 

how  you  bear  it.  Outward  circumstances  are  not  our 
masters  ;  where  a  man  can  live  at  all,  he  can  also  live 
well.  A  wise  man  is  out  of  the  reach  of  fortune,  and 
attempts  upon  him  are  no  more  than  Xerxes'  arrows ;  they 
may  darken  the  day,  but  they  cannot  strike  the  sun.  "  I 
must  die.  Must  I  then  die  lamenting  ?  I  must  go  into 
exile.  Does  any  man  then  hinder  me  from  going  with 
smiles  and  cheerfulness  and  contentment?  Tell  me  the 
secret  which  you  possess.  I  will  not,  for  this  is  in  my 
power.  But  I  will  put  you  in  chains.  Man,  what  are  you 
talking  about  ?  Me  in  chains?  You  may  fetter  my  leg, 
but  my  will  not  even  Zeus  himself  can  overpower.  I  will 
throw  you  into  prison.  My  poor  body,  you  mean.  I  will 
cut  your  head  off.  When,  then,  have  I  told  you  that  my 
head  alone  cannot  be  cut  off  ?  "  J  Thus  not  even  death  is  to 
the  wise  man  a  thing  to  dread ;  like  birth  and  all  that  the 
seasons  bring,  it  is  but  one  of  the  things  which  nature  wills. 
"  For  as  to  children  masks  appear  terrible  and  fearful  from 
inexperience,  we  also  are  affected  in  like  manner  by  events 
for  no  other  reason.  What  is  death  ?  A  tragic  mask. 
Turn  it  and  examine  it.  See,  it  does  not  bite.  The  poor 
body  must  be  separated  from  the  spirit  either  now  or  later, 
as  it  was  separated  from  it  before."  2  "  Pass,  then,  through 
thy  little  space  of  time  conformably  to  nature,  and  end  thy 
journey  in  content,  just  as  an  olive  falls  off  when  it  is  ripe, 
blessing  nature  who  produced  it,  and  thanking  the  tree 
on  which  it  grew."  3  Life  itself  is  neither  good  nor  evil, 
but  only  a  place  for  good  and  evil.  This  the  Stoics 
carried  to  the  extent  even  of  advocating  the  voluntary 
giving  up  of  life  by  suicide,  if  occasion  seemed  to  call 
for  it.  When  life  is  so  questionable  a  good,  why  not 
renounce  it?  it  is  but  ridding  ourselves  of  a  trouble- 
some burden.  "  The  house  is  smoky  and  I  quit  it "  —  that 
is  all  there  is  to  say.  "  The  door  is  open  ;  be  not  more 
timid  than  little  children,  but  as  they  say  when  the  thing 
does  not  please  them  :  I  will  play  no  longer,  so  do  you, 

1  Discourses,  I,  I.  2  Ibid.,  II,  I.  8  Thoughts,  IV,  48. 


152         A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

when  things  seem  to  you  of  such  a  kind,  say  :  I  will  no 
longer  play,  and  be  gone.  But  if  you  stay,  do  not  com- 
plain." 1  Temperance  in  prosperity,  courage  in  adversity, 
and  a  pervading  faith  in  the  oneness,  rationality,  and  good- 
ness of  the  universe  —  this  is  the  whole  duty  of  man. 
"  Everything  harmonizes  with  me  which  is  harmonious  to 
thee,  O  Universe ;  nothing  for  me  is  too  early  or  too  late, 
which  is  in  due  time  for  thee.  Everything  is  fruit  for  me 
which  thy  seasons  bring,  O  Nature ;  from  thee  are  all 
things,  in  thee  are  all  things,  to  thee  all  things  return. 
The  poets  say :  Dear  City  of  Cecrops,  and  wilt  not  thou 
say  :  Dear  city  of  Zeus  ?  "  2 

3.  The  Problem  of  Evil.  —  Before  closing  the  account  of 
Stoicism,  it  will  be  well  to  mention  two  problems  in  particu- 
lar, which  the  requirements  of  their  theory  led  the  Stoics  to 
give  a  special  prominence.  These  are  the  problems  of  evil, 
and  of  human  freedom.  The  Stoic,  as  has  been  said,  accepts 
the  teleological  explanation  of  the  universe,  as  opposed  to 
the  theory  of  unmeaning  mechanism  ;  to  him  it  is  self-evident 
that  the  world  is  framed  in  accordance  with  a  rational  pur- 
pose. "  Every  man  knows  without  telling  that  this  won- 
derful fabric  of  the  universe  is  not  without  a  governor,  and 
that  a  constant  order  cannot  be  the  work  of  chance ;  for 
the  parts  would  then  fall  foul  one  upon  another.  The 
motions  of  the  stars  and  their  influences  are  acted  by  the 
command  of  an  eternal  decree.  It  is  by  the  dictates  of 
an  almighty  power  that  the  heavy  body  of  the  earth  hangs 
in  balance."8  Accordingly,  the  world  must  be  a  perfect 
world  ;  and  this  the  Stoics  attempted  to  establish  by  appeal- 
ing to  the  harmony  and  beauty  in  it,  and  the  apparent 
adaptation  of  means  to  end,  especially  in  organic  life. 
Thus,  the  peacock  is  made  for  the  sake  of  its  beautiful 
tail ;  horses  are  made  for  riding ;  sheep  to  supply  clothing 
for  man,  and  dogs  to  guard  and  help  him ;  asses  to  carry 
his  burdens.  Such  reasoning,  however,  unless  a  severe 
restraint  were  put  upon  it,  was  clearly  in  danger  of  de- 

1  Discourses,  I,  24.  2  Thoughts,  IV,  23.  3  Dial.,  I,  I. 


The  Later  Ethical  Period  153 

scending  to  trivialities ;  and  at  its  best  it  still  has  to  meet 
difficulties,  by  reason  of  the  numerous  cases  where,  espe- 
cially if  we  take  human  life  as  the  end  of  creation,  the 
products  of  nature  seem  quite  irrelevant,  or  else  positively 
harmful.  So  the  Stoics  were  put  upon  their  mettle  to  meet 
these  objections,  and  still  maintain  the  perfection  of  the 
world. 

In  doing  this,  they  succeeded  in  bringing  out  a  suggestion, 
at  least,  of  most  of  the  considerations  by  which  subsequent 
thought  has  tried  to  vindicate  the  ways  of  God  to  man.  As 
regards  physical  evils,  at  any  rate,  they  had  already  met 
the  difficulty  consistently,  even  if  paradoxically,  by  their 
denial  that  such  things  are  evil  at  all.  "  Many  afflictions 
may  befall  a  good  man,  but  no  evil,  for  contraries  will 
never  incorporate ;  all  the  rivers  of  the  world  are  never 
able  to  change  the  taste  and  quality  of  the  ocean."1  Or, 
again,  if  we  wish  to  take  it  on  somewhat  less  high  ground, 
let  us  remember  that  we  only  have  to  live  each  moment  at 
a  time.  It  is  neither  the  future  nor  the  past  that  pains  me, 
but  only  the  present.  If  then  I  do  not  let  my  thoughts 
embrace  at  once  all  the  troubles  I  may  expect  to  befall  me, 
but  consider  each  occasion  by  itself,  I  shall  be  ashamed  to 
confess  that  there  is  in  it  anything  intolerable  and  past  bear- 
ing. Put  besides  this,  there  are  other  more  positive  con- 
siderations. The  conception  of  the  world  as  a  unity  enables 
us  to  explain  a  seeming  imperfection  by  its  relation  to  the 
larger  scheme  of  things  into  which  it  enters  ;  a  partial  evil 
becomes  a  universal  good.  "  Must  my  leg  then  be  lamed  ? 
Wretch,  do  you  then  on  account  of  one  poor  leg  find  fault 
with  the  world  ?  Will  you  not  willingly  surrender  it  for 
the  whole  ?  Know  you  not  how  small  a  part  you  are  com- 
pared with  the  whole  ? "  2  "  If  a  good  man  had  foreknowl- 
edge of  what  would  happen,  he  would  cooperate  toward 
his  own  sickness  and  death  and  mutilation,  since  he  knows 
that  these  things  are  assigned  to  him  according  to  the  uni- 
versal arrangement,  and  that  the  whole  is  superior  to  the 

1  Ibid.,  I,  2.  a  Discourses,  I,  12. 


154        ^  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

part."  1  "  But  how  is  it  said  that  some  external  things  are 
according  to  nature,  and  others  contrary  to  nature  ?  It  is 
said  as  it  might  be  said  if  we  were  separated  from  society ; 
for  to  the  foot  I  shall  say  that  it  is  according  to  nature  for 
it  to  be  clean  ;  but  if  you  take  it  as  a  foot,  and  as  a  thing 
not  independent,  it  will  befit  it  both  to  step  into  the  mud, 
and  tread  on  thorns,  and  sometimes  to  be  cast  off  for  the 
good  of  the  whole  body ;  otherwise  it  is  no  longer  a  foot. 
We  should  think  in  some  such  way  about  ourselves  also. 
What  are  you  ?  A  man.  If  you  consider  yourself  as 
detached  from  other  men,  it  is  according  to  nature  to  live 
to  old  age,  to  be  rich,  to  be  healthy.  But  if  you  consider 
yourself  as  a  man,  and  a  part  of  a  certain  whole,  it  is  for 
the  sake  of  that  whole  that  atone  time  you  should  be  sick, 
at  another  time  take  a  voyage  and  run  into  danger,  at 
another  time  be  in  want,  and  in  some  cases  die  prematurely. 
Why  then  are  you  troubled  ?  Do  you  not  know  that  as  a 
foot  is  no  longer  a  foot  if  it  is  detached  from  the  body,  so 
you  are  no  longer  a  man  if  you  are  separated  from  other 
men  ? "  2 

It  is  true  that  often  this  does  not  carry  us  very  far 
practically,  since  we  are  unable  to  put  ourselves  at  the 
point  of  view  of  the  whole ;  and  so  we  may  be  forced  to 
fall  back  on  the  blind  faith  that  nature  can  do  no  wrong. 
But  sometimes  also  we  can  see  how  evil  may  work  for 
good.  "Just  as  we  must  understand  when  it  is  said  that 
^Esculapius  prescribed  to  this  man  horse  exercise,  or  bath- 
ing in  cold  water,  or  going  without  shoes,  so  we  must 
understand  it  when  it  is  said  that  the  nature  of  the  uni- 
verse prescribed  to  this  man  disease,  or  mutilation,  or 
loss  of  anything  of  the  kind."3  As  a  master  gives  his 
most  hopeful  scholars  the  hardest  lessons,  so  does  God 
deal  with  the  most  generous  spirits.  Life  is  a  warfare,  and 
what  brave  man  would  not  rather  choose  to  be  in  a  tent 
than  in  shambles  ?  In  reality  no  one  is  more  unhappy 
than  the  man  whom  no  misfortune  has  ever  befallen. 

1  Ibid.,  II,  10.  « Ibid.,  II,  5.  3  Thoughts,  V,  8. 


The  Later  Ethical  Period  155 

How  many  are  there  in  the  world  that  enjoy  all  things 
to  their  own  wish,  whom  God  never  thought  worthy  of  a 
trial.  If  it  might  be  imagined  that  the  Almighty  should 
take  off  his  thought  from  the  care  of  his  whole  work, 
what  more  glorious  spectacle  could  he  reflect  upon  than  a 
valiant  man  struggling  with  adverse  fortune  ?  Calamity 
is  the  touchstone  of  a  brave  mind,  that  resolves  to  live  and 
die  master  of  itself.  Adversity  is  the  better  for  us  all,  for 
it  is  God's  mercy  to  show  the  world  their  errors,  and  that 
the  things  they  fear  and  covet  are  neither  good  nor  evil, 
being  the  common  and  promiscuous  lot  of  good  men  and 
bad.1 

4.  The  Problem  of  Freedom.  —  The  other  problem  which 
received  attention  in  the  controversies  between  the  Stoics 
and  the  Epicureans  was  the  problem  of  freedom.  The 
whole  standpoint  of  the  Stoics,  as  the  preceding  quota- 
tions will  show,  involved  an  insistence  upon  the  supreme 
reality  of  duty,  and  the  responsibility  which  goes  along 
with  duty.  But  on  the  other  side  stood  their  doctrine 
of  necessity,  according  to  which  man  is  but  a  part  of 
the  universe  which  is  acting  through  him.  Their  op- 
ponents were  quick  to  point  out  the  apparent  contra- 
diction, and  to  insist  that  no  place  was  left  for  real 
freedom  and  responsibility.  A  reconciliation  of  freedom 
with  determinism  was,  accordingly,  attempted  by  the  Stoics 
with  considerable  acuteness  ;  and  in  this  way  there  was 
evolved  the  conception  of  a  freedom  opposed  to  the  mere 
causeless  liberty  of  indifference  which  the  Epicureans 
upheld.  Such  a  freedom  acts,  indeed,  in  accordance  with 
law ;  but  this  law  is  an  expression  of  man's  own  inner 
nature,  and  not  something  forced  upon  him  from  without. 
What  I  will  to  do  is  my  action,  whether  I  could  have 
acted  differently  or  not ;  and  so  I  am  strictly  responsible 
for  it.  If  the  result  sometimes  takes  on  the  aspect  of 
fatalism,  this  is  natural  in  an  age  in  which  political  free- 
dom had  disappeared  before  the  despotism  of  a  great  world 
iCf. /?«/.,  1, 4,  5. 


156        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

empire,  and  the  policy  of  submission  was  forced  upon  all 
minds  as  the  only  safe  one.  Nevertheless,  it  is  not  an 
ignoble  submission,  for  we  are  yielding,  not  to  brute  force, 
as  in  the  political  world,  but  to  the  law  of  reason,  which 
is  the  law  of  our  own  being.  Is  not  this,  indeed,  the  only 
true  liberty  ?  The  wise  man  does  nothing  unwillingly,  for 
whatever  he  finds  necessary,  he  makes  his  choice.  We  are 
born  subjects,  but  to  obey  God  is  perfect  liberty.  "  But 
you  say:  I  would  like  to  have  everything  result  just  as 
I  like,  and  in  whatever  way  I  like.  You  are  mad,  you  are 
beside  yourself.  Do  you  not  know  that  freedom  is  a  noble 
and  valuable  thing  ?  But  for  me  inconsiderately  to  wish 
for  things  to  happen  as  I  inconsiderately  like,  this  appears 
to  me  not  only  not  noble,  but  even  most  base.  For  how 
do  we  proceed  in  the  matter  of  writing  ?  Do  I  wish  to 
write  the  name  of  Dion  as  I  choose?  No;  but  I  am 
taught  to  choose  to  write  it  as  it  ought  to  be  written. 
And  how  with  respect  to  music  ?  In  the  same  manner. 
If  it  were  not  so,  it  would  be  of  no  value  to  know  any- 
thing, if  knowledge  were  adapted  to  every  man's  whim. 
Is  it  then  in  this  alone,  in  this  which  is  the  greatest  and 
the  chief  thing  —  I  mean  freedom  —  that  I  am  permitted 
to  will  inconsiderately  ?  By  no  means,  but  to  be  instructed 
is  this  :  to  learn  to  wish  that  everything  may  happen  as  it 
does."  * 

It  is  evident  that  the  esoteric  belief  of  the  Stoics  was 
far  removed  from  the  popular  religion,  and  lay  in  the 
direction  of  a  monotheism  or  pantheism.  Still,  their  whole 
temper  of  mind  disposed  them  not  to  attack  the  religious 
faith  of  the  times,  as  the  Epicureans  did,  but  rather  to 
accommodate  themselves  to  it,  as  an  expression,  inade- 
quate indeed,  but  still  the  best  attainable,  of  a  real  truth. 
Accordingly,  they  were  not  averse  to  speaking  in  the 
ordinary  language  about  the  Gods,  provided  they  were 
allowed  to  put  their  own  construction  upon  their  words. 
According  to  that  construction,  the  different  deities  are,  of 

1  Discourses,  I,  12. 


TJie  Later  Ethical  Period  157 

course,  only  the  several  functions  of  the  one  nature,  the 
one  almighty  power.  "When,"  says  Seneca,  "men  speak 
of  him  as  the  father  and  the  fountain  of  all  beings,  they 
call  him  Bacchus  ;  and  when  under  the  name  of  Hercules, 
they  denote  him  to  be  indefatigable  and  invincible ;  and  in 
the  contemplation  of  him  in  the  reason,  proportion,  order, 
and  wisdom  of  his  proceedings,  they  call  him  Mercury ;  so 
that  which  way  soever  they  look,  and  under  what  name 
soever  they  couch  their  meaning,  they  never  fail  of  find- 
ing him,  for  he  is  everywhere,  and  fills  his  own  work. 
If  a  man  should  borrow  money  of  Seneca,  and  say  that 
he  owes  it  to  Annaeus  or  Lucius,  he  may  change  the  name, 
but  not  his  creditor ;  for  let  him  take  which  of  the  three 
names  he  pleases,  he  is  still  a  debtor  to  the  same  per- 
son." * 

5.  Stoicism  and  Christianity.  —  If  we  try  to  sum  up 
briefly  the  influence  of  Stoicism,  we  may  say  that  it 
created,  at  a  time  when  ideals  were  sorely  needed,  an 
ideal  of  personal  life  and  character  more  profound  than 
the  Greek  world  had  yet  seen;  and  in  so  doing,  it  pro- 
vided the  only  available  refuge  for  minds  of  the  nobler 
sort.  In  many  ways  it  offers  obvious  points  of  contact 
with  the  Christian  religion,  and  it  played  an  important 
part  in  the  preparation  which  rendered  the  triumph 
of  Christianity  possible.  The  conception  of  the  omni- 
presence of  God  in  the  world  as  pneuma,  or  spirit;  the 
emphasis,  unknown  until  now,  which  was  laid  upon  duty 
as  the  inner  law  of  man's  nature ;  the  ideal  of  a  life  of 
self-denial,  easily  passing  into  an  ascetic  contempt  for 
the  things  of  this  world  —  these,  and  many  other  points 
of  resemblance,  will  suggest  themselves.  But  on  the  other 
hand,  there  are  important  elements  of  difference.  In  the 
first  place,  while  the  God  of  the  Stoics  is  preeminently 
one  of  impersonal  intelligence  and  power,  the  God  of 
Christianity  is  a  God  of  love.  The  outlines  of  the  Stoic 
conception  are  almost  uniformly  hard  and  uncompromising. 

1  Seneca,  On  BeneJUs,  IV,  8. 


158        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

God  looks  after  the  perfection  of  the  whole,  but  this  may 
or  may  not  be  compatible  with  the  happiness  of  the  in- 
dividual. The  same  hardness  was  carried  over  into  the 
relations  of  man  to  man ;  more  truly,  perhaps,  the  former 
fact  is  a  reflex  of  the  latter.  We  should  help  our  fellows, 
indeed,  as  reason  demands  ;  but  we  should  do  it  simply  as 
our  duty,  without  letting  ourselves  be  betrayed  into  feel- 
ings of  pity  or  tenderness.  Theoretically,  the  Stoics  recom- 
mend an  insensibility  which  is  nothing  short  of  inhuman. 
A  wise  man  is  not  affected  by  the  loss  of  children  or 
friends.  "  To  feel  pain  or  griefs  for  the  misfortunes  of 
others,"  says  Seneca,  one  of  the  mildest  of  Stoics,  "is  a 
weakness  unworthy  of  the  sage ;  for  nothing  should  cloud 
his  serenity  or  shake  his  firmness." 

It  follows  that  Stoicism  can  only  appeal  to  the  sense  of 
satisfaction  in  one's  mere  power  of  dogged  endurance,  as 
his  sole  reward  ;  Christianity,  on  the  other  hand,  is  a  reli- 
gion of  hope  and  consolation.  Even  when,  with  Stoicism, 
it  holds  to  the  necessity  of  rejecting  the  solicitations  of 
pleasure  and  ambition,  it  does  not  make  this  negation  an 
end  in  itself,  but  a  means  to  a  fuller  life  in  another  world, 
if  not  in  this.  The  love  of  God  to  men  will  never  permit 
them  to  drop  out  of  his  scheme ;  and  the  demand  for 
brute  endurance  is  not,  therefore,  the  last  word.  The 
value  of  endurance  is  in  relation  to  the  reward  for  endur- 
ance which  is  sure  to  come.  To  the  Stoic,  immortality  is 
only  a  possible  hypothesis,  which  carries  no  special  consola- 
tion with  it,  even  if  it  is  not  rejected  outright ;  and  in  any 
case,  it  is  but  an  extension  of  life,  not  an  absolute  immor- 
tality. For  even  if  our  self-identity  continues  for  a  time 
after  death,  yet  at  last  the  final  overthrow  of  this  world 
of  ours  will  come,  and  in  the  universal  conflagration 
which  will  then  take  place,  all  finite  souls  will  be  re- 
absorbed  into  the  great  world  soul,  and  lose  their  separate 
existence. 

And,  finally,  Stoicism  is  primarily  an  Ethics,  not,  like 
Christianity,  a  Religion.  The  philosopher  attains  virtue 


The  Later  Ethical  Period  159 

by  his  own  efforts ;  he  looks  to  himself  for  help,  not  to 
God.  The  wise  man,  so  the  Stoic  could  say,  is  as  neces- 
sary to  Zeus,  as  Zeus  to  the  wise  man.  In  one  way  he 
even  can  surpass  God :  God  is  beyond  suffering  evil,  the 
wise  man  is  above  it.  God  surpasses  the  good  man  in 
this  only,  that  He  is  longer  good  ;  the  good  man  can  excel 
God  in  the  patience  with  which  he  bears  the  trials  of  his 
mortal  lot.  The  result  is,  at  its  best,  a  respect  for  one- 
self, and  one's  own  integrity,  which  is  wholesome  and 
heroic ;  at  its  worst,  a  Pharisaic  pride  in  one's  individual 
achievements,  and  a  contemptuous  disregard  for  those 
less  strong.  But  in  any  case,  it  is  not  a  creed  for  the 
masses,  but  only  for  exceptional  natures.  It  fostered 
ideals  which  proved  a  saving  leaven  in  the  corruption 
of  social  life ;  but  it  was  too  cold,  intellectual,  and  self- 
centred  to  regenerate  society.  In  the  need  that  was 
felt  for  something  that  should  appeal,  not  simply  to  the 
intellect  or  the  bare  will,  but  to  the  feelings  and  emo- 
tions as  well,  which  should  take  man  out  of  himself,  more- 
over, and  help  out  his  weakness  by  relating  him  to  a 
higher  power,  ethical  philosophy  was  passing  into  religious 
philosophy. 

LITERATURE 

Marcus  Aurelius,  Thoughts. 

Seneca,  Dialogues,  On  Benefits,  On  Clemency,  Letters. 
Epictetus,  Discourses  and  Encheiridion. 
Cicero,  Philosophical  Works. 
Plutarch,  Morals. 
Capes,  Stoicism. 

Bryant,     The    Mutual    Influence    of  Christianity  and   the    Stoic 
School. 

Zeller,  Stoics,  Epicureans,  and  Sceptics. 

Pater,  Marius  the  Epicurean. 

Seth,  Study  of  Ethical  Principles. 

Matthew  Arnold,  Marcus  Aurelius  (in  Essays'). 

Jackson,  Seneca  and  Kant. 

Watson,  Life  of  M.  Aurelius. 

Bruce,  Moral  Order  of  the  World  in  Ancient  and  Modern  Thought. 


160        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

§  1 6.    The  Sceptics 

I.  Before  turning,  however,  to  the  development  of  reli- 
gious philosophy,  it  is  necessary  to  give  a  brief  account  of 
the  other  tendencies  of  the  period  that  has  already  been 
considered.  Of  these,  the  most  important  is  Scepticism. 
The  first  representative  of  Scepticism  was  Pyrrho  of  Elis 
(365-275  B.C.),  a  contemporary  of  Aristotle.  Like  Zeno 
and  Epicurus,  Pyrrho  comes  to  philosophy  with  a  practical 
end  in  view.  But  instead  of  attempting  to  find  satisfaction 
through  the  medium  of  a  positive  and  dogmatic  system 
of  belief,  he  thought  that  it  was  just  in  this  direction  that 
inquietude  and  perplexity  lay.  For  after  all  that  men 
have  thought,  what  agreement  have  they  reached  on  the 
simplest  questions  ?  Each  school  has  its  own  special 
answer,  which  differs  from  the  answer  given  by  any  other 
school.  Let  us  recognize,  then,  that  much  thinking  is  a 
weariness  to  the  flesh ;  that  speculation  only  involves  us 
in  doubt  and  uncertainty ;  that  every  question  may  be 
argued  equally  well  on  either  side,  so  that  a  final  decision 
is  impossible.  Let  us  find  peace  of  mind  by  acquiescing 
in  our  enforced  ignorance,  holding  our  minds  in  suspense, 
and  regarding  as  indifferent  to  us  all  external  things,  since 
we  cannot  possibly  know  the  truth  about  them.  In  later 
days,  stories  were  current  of  the  way  in  which  Pyrrho 
exemplified  his  own  philosophy  on  the  practical  side  ;  how, 
for  example,  he  declined  to  trust  his  senses  even  to  the 
extent  of  turning  out  for  a  wagon,  or  precipice,  or  what- 
ever might  be  in  his  way,  and  so  had  to  be  rescued  by  his 
friends. 

Pyrrho  had  no  very  great  influence  on  the  thought  of 
his  own  day ;  the  field  was  not  yet  ready  for  him.  But  as 
the  period  of  originality  in  speculative  thinking  became 
more  distant,  a  new  sceptical  reaction  grew  up  against  the 
dogmatism  of  the  dominant  schools.  This  reaction  suc- 
ceeded in  finding  a  home  temporarily  in  the  Academy, 
where  it  was  adopted  in  the  first  place  chiefly  as  a  weapon 


The  Later  Ethical  Period  161 

against  the  Stoics.  The  most  important  names  in  connec- 
tion with  the  Middle  Academy,  as  it  is  called,  are  those  of 
Arcesilaus  (315-241  B.C.),  and  his  more  brilliant  successor 
Carneades  (215-130  B.C.).  By  Carneades,  Scepticism  was 
carried  over  into  the  realm  of  Ethics  as  well ;  and  it  is  re- 
lated that  while  on  a  political  embassy  to  Rome,  he  created 
a  great  sensation  by  arguing  very  eloquently  in  a  public 
discourse  in  behalf  of  justice,  and  then  the  next  day  speak- 
ing with  equal  effect  against  it.  The  Academic  doctrine 
had,  however,  a  more  positive  side  also.  Although  cer- 
tainty cannot  be  had,  yet  practical  needs  require  that  there 
should  be  something  to  render  decision  possible.  This 
the  Academics  tried  to  give  in  their  doctrine  of  probability. 
A  thing  may  not  be  capable  of  proof,  but  it  still  may  be 
more  probable  than  its  opposite ;  and  the  logic  of  proba- 
bility, which  for  practical  needs  is  as  good  as  demonstra- 
tion, they  worked  out  in  some  detail.  A  third  tendency  in 
Scepticism,  which  considered  that  the  Academy  was  still 
too  dogmatic,  and  so  professed  to  go  back  to  the  more 
thoroughgoing  doctrine  of  Pyrrho,  is  found  among  the  so- 
called  Empiricists,  who  are  chiefly  physicians.  Of  these 
the  most  important  are  jEnesidemus  of  Cnossus,  and 
Sextus  Empiricus. 

2.  The  arguments  of  the  Sceptics  may  be  divided  roughly 
into  two  classes,  —  those  empirical  proofs,  drawn  chiefly 
from  sensation,  which  show  the  actual  uncertainty  and  con- 
tradictoriness  of  our  knowledge,  and  the  more  theoretical 
considerations  from  the  nature  of  thought  or  reason.  These 
arguments  have  become  familiar  at  the  present  day,  and 
may  be  reproduced  briefly  as  follows  : 1  — 

There  are,  first,  the  differences  in  the  organization  of 
animals,  and  the  consequent  difference  in  the  impressions 
which  the  same  object  makes  upon  them.  What  is  pleas- 
ant to  one  is  disagreeable  to  another ;  what  is  useful  to  one, 
to  another  is  fatal.  Thus,  young  branches  are  eagerly 

1  Taken  largely  from  Diogenes  Laertius"  life  of  Pyrrho  (Bohn's  Classical 
Library). 

M 


1 62        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

eaten  by  the  goat,  but  are  bitter  to  mankind ;  hemlock  is 
nutritious  to  the  quail,  but  deadly  to  man.  So  animals 
differ  vastly  in  the  degree  of  development  of  their  faculties. 
The  hawk  is  far  more  keen-sighted  than  man,  the  dog  has 
a  much  acuter  scent.  Must  it  not  be  a  different  world, 
then,  that  reveals  itself  to  different  beings  ?  and  who  is  to 
decide  which  is  the  true  world  ? 

So  among  men  themselves,  how  vast  is  the  variety  in  the 
ways  in  which  things  affect  them  ?  According  to  Demo- 
phon,  the  steward  of  Alexander  used  to  feel  warm  in  the 
shade,  and  to  shiver  in  the  sun.  Andron  the  Argive 
travelled  through  the  deserts  of  Libya  without  once  drink- 
ing. Again,  one  man  is  fond  of  medicine,  another  of 
farming,  another  of  commerce.  How  are  we  to  set  up 
any  standard  in  the  midst  of  the  confusion  that  meets  us  ? 
Everything  goes  back  to  personal  tastes,  and  about  tastes 
there  is  no  disputing. 

Again,  look  at  the  different  ways  in  which  the  same 
object  will  appear  to  the  different  senses.  An  apple 
presents  itself  to  the  sense  of  sight  as  yellow,  to  the  taste 
as  sweet,  to  the  smell  as  fragrant.  Does  not  this  very  fact, 
that  each  sense  modifies  the  report  which  an  object  sends 
in,  so  as  to  change  its  character  entirely,  show  that  we 
never  get  the  true  object  at  all  ?  Conceivably  there  might 
be  countless  other  senses,  and  each  of  these  would  have  just 
as  much,  or  just  as  little,  title  to  be  believed  as  those  we 
possess. 

And  in  the  same  person  there  are  continual  changes 
going  on,  which  affect  his  whole  view  of  things.  Health, 
sickness,  sleep,  waking,  joy,  grief,  youth,  old  age,  courage, 
fear,  want,  abundance,  hatred,  friendship,  warmth,  cold, 
ease  or  difficulty  of  breathing, — all  determine  us  to  the  most 
varied  and  contradictory  notions  about  the  real  nature  of 
facts.  What  are  we  to  take  as  the  normal  state,  where 
things  appear  in  their  truth  ?  And  what  opinion  can  we 
have  of  a  being  whose  powers  and  faculties  can  be  so 
easily  upset  and  confounded  by  the  most  trifling  cause  ? 


The  Later  Ethical  Period  163 

Consider,  next,  the  all-important  matter  of  custom  and 
tradition,  and  the  effect  which  habit,  education,  and  envi- 
ronment have  in  determining  a  man's  beliefs.  In  the  face 
of  this,  how  can  we  suppose  that  there  is  any  absolute 
foundation  of  true  or  false,  right  or  wrong  ?  In  one 
community  certain  customs  rule,  and  everybody  regards 
them  as  eminently  right  and  natural.  Pass  into  the  next 
country,  and  you  will  find  these  same  customs  condemned 
as  absurd  and  vicious.  The  same  action  is  just  in  the  eyes 
of  some  people,  and  unjust  in  those  of  others.  The 
Persians  do  not  think  it  unnatural  for  a  man  to  marry  his 
daughter ;  but  among  the  Greeks  it  is  unlawful.  The 
Cilicians  delight  in  piracy,  but  the  Greeks  avoid  it.  Dif- 
ferent nations  worship  different  Gods,  and  worship  them 
by  different  rites.  And  in  the  same  country,  customs  are 
all  the  while  changing.  "  We  see  scarcely  anything  just 
or  unjust  that  does  not  change  quality  in  changing  climate. 
Three  degrees  of  higher  latitude  overturn  all  jurispru- 
dence. A  meridian  decides  the  truth.  Fundamental  laws 
change;  right  has  its  epochs.  Pitiable  justice,  bounded  by 
a  river  or  a  mountain  !  Truth  this  side  the  Pyrenees,  error 
that  side."  * 

But  in  the  object,  as  well  as  in  the  subject,  there  are 
causes  of  confusion.  Nothing  is  seen  by  us  simply  and  by 
itself ;  but  in  combination  either  with  air,  or  with  light,  or 
with  moisture,  or  heat,  or  cold,  or  motion,  or  evaporation, 
or  some  other  power.  Sounds,  for  example,  are  different, 
according  as  the  air  is  dense  or  rare.  Purple  exhibits  a 
different  hue  in  the  sun,  and  in  the  moon,  and  by  lamp- 
light. A  stone  which  one  cannot  lift  in  the  air,  is  easily 
displaced  in  the  water.  Accordingly,  we  cannot  know  posi- 
tively the  peculiar  qualities  of  anything,  just  as  we  cannot 
distinguish  the  real  properties  of  oil  in  ointment. 

Another  fruitful  cause  of  uncertainty  is  the  position, 
distance,  and  spatial  relations  of  objects.  Objects  that  we 
believe  to  be  large,  sometimes  appear  small ;  those  that  we 

1  Pascal,  Thoughts. 


164        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

believe  to  be  square,  sometimes  appear  round ;  those  that 
we  fancy  even,  appear  full  of  projections ;  those  that  we 
think  straight,  seem  bent;  those  that  we  think  colorless, 
appear  colored.  A  vessel  seen  at  a  distance  seems  station- 
ary. Mountains  at  a  distance  look  smooth,  but  when 
beheld  close  at  hand,  they  are  rough.  The  sun  on  account 
of  its  distance  appears  small ;  and  it  has  one  appearance 
at  its  rise,  and  quite  another  at  midday.  The  neck  of  the 
dove  changes  its  color  as  it  turns.  Since,  then,  it  is  impos- 
sible to  view  things  irrespectively  of  place  and  position,  it 
is  clear  that  their  real  nature  is  not  known. 

Again,  qualities  differ  according  to  quantities.  The  horn 
of  the  goat  is  black ;  the  detached  fragments  of  this  horn 
are  whitish.  A  moderate  quantity  of  wine  invigorates, 
while  an  excessive  quantity  weakens.  Certain  poisons  are 
fatal  when  taken  alone ;  in  mixture  with  other  substances, 
they  cure. 

The  frequency  or  rarity  of  a  thing  determines  our 
view  of  it.  Earthquakes  excite  no  wonder  among  those 
nations  with  whom  they  are  of  frequent  occurrence  ;  nor 
does  the  sun  astonish  us,  because  we  see  it  every  day. 

Finally,  we  cannot  say  anything  about  an  object,  without 
involving,  explicitly  or  implicitly,  a  comparison  or  relation 
with  other  things.  Thus  light  and  heavy,  strong  and  weak, 
greater  and  less,  above  and  below,  right  and  left,  are  obvi- 
ously only  relative  terms.  In  the  same  way,  a  man  is 
spoken  of  as  a  father,  or  brother,  or  relation  to  some  one 
else ;  and  day  is  called  so  in  relation  to  the  sun  ;  and  every- 
thing has  its  distinctive  name  in  relation  to  human  thought. 
We  cannot  strip  off  these  relations  and  have  any  content 
left;  and  consequently  all  our  knowledge  is  relative  —  never 
of  the  thing  in  itself. 

3.  If  perception  is  incapable  of  giving  us  truth,  so, 
equally,  is  thought ;  and  the  difficulties  in  the  process  of 
syllogistic  reasoning  are  accordingly  pointed  out.  And 
if  neither  sensation  by  itself,  nor  thought  by  itself,  can 
attain  to  certainty,  their  combination  is  clearly  in  no 


The  Later  Ethical  Period  165 

better  case.  The  whole  matter  is  summed  up  in  the  dis- 
cussion about  the  criterion  of  truth.  Every  demonstration 
depends  on  the  validity  of  certain  premises,  and  these  must 
themselves  in  turn  be  established,  if  the  whole  process  is 
not  to  hang  in  the  air.  Accordingly,  unless  we  go  on  for- 
ever establishing  one  truth  by  another,  we  are  compelled 
to  find  somewhere  a  starting-point  that  is  absolutely  cer- 
tain in  itself.  But  what  way  have  we  of  recognizing  such 
a  truth  ?  The  Sceptics  of  course  deny  that  there  is  any 
criterion.  Sensation  will  not  give  it,  for  sensations  have 
been  shown  to  be  utterly  unreliable.  Shall  we  say,  with 
the  Stoics,  that  it  is  the  clearness  and  self-evidence  with 
which  a  truth  comes  home  to  us  ;  or  its  universal  acceptance 
by  mankind  ?  But  universal  agreement  does  not  exist,  and 
would  prove  nothing  if  it  did ;  and  we  are  often  very  clear 
and  very  positive  about  what  turns  out  to  be  no  truth  at 
all.  The  Sceptics  went  on  to  show  in  detail,  and  with 
much  acuteness,  the  flaws  in  the  reasonings  and  results 
of  the  dogmatic  philosophers.  The  most  extensive  account 
that  we  possess  of  the  sceptical  arguments  is  in  a  work  by 
Sextus  Empiricus  entitled  Against  the  Mathematicians.  In 
this  it  is  interesting  to  note  that,  among  other  things,  the  idea 
of  causality  is  subjected  to  a  destructive  criticism.  It  is 
this  same  problem  which  occupied  the  greatest  of  modern 
sceptics  —  David  Hume. 

LITERATURE 

Maccoll,  The  Greek  Sceptics. 

Zeller,  Stoics,  Epicureans,  and  Sceptics. 

Patrick,  Sextus  Empiricus  and  Greek  Scepticism. 

§  17.     The  Scientific  Movement.     Eclecticism.     Philo 

i.  Meanwhile,  in  another  part  of  the  world,  a  very  con- 
siderable intellectual  activity  had  been  going  on,  which, 
although  it  lies  outside  the  main  philosophical  movement, 


1 66        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

deserves  a  brief  mention.  In  Athens,  which,  after  its  loss  of 
political  importance,  had  become  practically  a  University 
town,  the  speculative  interest  continued  to  be  predominant ; 
but  elsewhere,  the  scientific  side  of  Aristotle's  work  was 
being  carried  on  with  a  considerable  degree  of  success.  Alex- 
andria, in  Northern  Egypt,  had  been  founded  by  the  con- 
queror in  the  second  half  of  the  fourth  century,  and,  under 
the  enlightened  rule  of  the  earlier  Ptolemies,  it  sprang  to  a 
place  among  the  centres  of  the  world.  What  its  position  did 
for  it  commercially,  the  founding  of  the  great  University 
of  Alexandria  accomplished  in  other  lines.  To  this  im- 
mense school,  the  greatest  of  ancient  times,  students  came 
from  all  over  the  world.  Its  magnificent  equipment,  its 
botanical  garden,  observatory,  and  anatomical  building, 
its  collection  of  animals  from  every  land,  and  its  great 
library,  amounting  at  one  time  to  seven  hundred  thousand 
volumes,  gave  a  great  impetus  to  scholarship  and  science. 
A  series  of  eminent  scientists  made  the  Museum  illustrious  : 
the  best  known  are  the  mathematician  Euclid,  and  the 
astronomer  Ptolemy,  who  gives  his  name  to  the  system 
which  maintained  itself  down  to  the  time  of  Copernicus, 
and  whose  Geography  was  used  in  the  schools  of  Europe 
for  fourteen  centuries.  So  also  literature  was  encouraged, 
and  had  a  considerable  development.  It  is  true  that, 
for  the  most  part,  there  was  no  great  originality  shown ; 
still,  the  very  dependence  upon  the  standards  of  the  past 
gave  rise  to  valuable  results,  in  the  creation  of  a  new  inter- 
est in  literary  and  linguistic  studies.  The  history  of  liter- 
ature, the  critical  investigation  of  problems  of  style,  and 
the  study  of  language  and  grammar,  were  put  upon  some- 
thing like  a  systematic  and  scientific  basis.  In  other  cities, 
too,  such  as  Rhodes,  Antioch,  and  Tarsus,  similar  schools 
sprang  up,  and  became  centres  of  an  active  intellectual 
life. 

2.  But  in  the  realm  of  speculative  thought,  also,  there 
is  one  more  tendency  to  be  noted.  Scepticism  was  itself 
too  negative  to  satisfy  any  save  a  peculiar  few.  The  age 


The  Later  Ethical  Period  167 

had  need  of  knowledge,  and  this  practical  need  was  cer- 
tain to  cause  the  mass  of  men  to  ignore  the  subtle  argu- 
ments of  the  Sceptics.  Nevertheless,  Scepticism  was  not 
wholly  without  effect  even  in  wider  circles.  The  criticism 
which  it  brought  against  all  philosophies  alike  would,  at 
least,  tend  to  prick  the  conceit  that  in  any  one  school  the 
absolute  truth  was  contained.  And  the  necessary  recog- 
nition of  the  many  points  of  similarity  between  Stoic, 
Academic,  and  Peripatetic,  which  constant  discussion 
brought  about,  also  helped  to  lessen  their  opposition.  This 
had  its  counterpart  on  the  political  side,  in  the  softening 
down  of  national  peculiarities  which  had  begun  with  the 
Macedonian  world-empire,  and  the  spread  of  the  Greek 
language  and  ideas,  and  which  reached  its  culmination  in 
the  Roman  conquests.  As  political  and  national  extremes 
were  worn  away,  and  compromises  accepted  to  the  end  that 
all  men  might  dwell  together  in  a  practical  unity  through- 
out the  Roman  Empire,  so  the  various  schools  began  to 
unite  on  a  common  philosophical  basis,  from  which  the 
more  extreme  differences  had  been  eliminated.  At  least 
this  was  true  of  all  except  the  Epicureans,  who  for  the 
most  part  continued  to  stand  out  as  heterodox,  and  to 
whose  mechanical  and  hedonistic  tendencies  the  other 
three  schools  found  themselves  opposed  on  a  common 
ground.  This  eclecticism  was  largely  stimulated  when  the 
Greek  philosophy  came  in  contact  with  the  Romans. 
Themselves  without  any  strong  theoretical  interests,  and 
caring  for  philosophy,  if  they  cared  for  it  at  all,  only  for 
its  practical  ends,  the  Romans  would  have  but  little  sym- 
pathy with  subtle  metaphysical  distinctions.  To  the  hard- 
headed  Roman,  the  disputes  of  the  philosophers  were  trifling 
and  uncalled  for,  and  capable  of  being  easily  settled  by  a 
little  shrewd  management.  The  pro-consul  Gellius  actu- 
ally took  upon  himself  to  urge  the  Athenian  philosophers 
to  come  to  a  compromise,  and  offered  his  own  services 
as  mediator.  Of  this  syncretistic  temper,  Cicero  is  the 
most  eminent  representative.  Without  any  great  philo- 


1 68        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

sophic  gifts  himself,  his  chief  service  is  as  a  popularizer 
of  Greek  ideas. 

3.  What  has  been  said  so  far  of  Eclecticism  has  in  view 
chiefly  the  philosophy  of  the  West.  In  the  East,  the  same 
attitude  brought  about  another  movement  which  proved  of 
great  importance,  —  the  union,  namely,  of  Oriental  ele- 
ments with  the  stream  of  European  thought.  It  was  at 
Alexandria,  again,  that  this  tendency  crystallized.  Among 
the  inhabitants  of  Alexandria  there  were  a  very  large  num- 
ber of  Jewish  colonists,  who,  by  their  activity  and  abilities, 
quickly  made  themselves  a  power.  Among  these  exiles 
the  Hellenizing  tendencies,  which,  in  opposition  to  ortho- 
dox Judaism,  had  very  nearly  won  the  day  even  in  Pales- 
tine itself,  had  an  opportunity  to  work  out  freely.  As 
early  as  the  third  century  a  translation  was  made  of  the 
Hebrew  scriptures  into  the  Greek  of  the  Septuagint,  and 
a  considerable  literature  sprang  up  in  which  Jewish  views 
of  life  are  modified  by  contact  with  Western  ideas.  Some 
of  this  is  preserved  among  the  books  of  the  Apocrypha. 

When,  in  the  second  century  before  Christ,  the  influence 
of  the  University  at  Alexandria  waned,  and  many  of  the 
Greek  professors  left  the  city,  the  Hellenistic  Jewish 
thought  became  the  dominant  intellectual  force.  And  in 
Philo,  a  Jew  of  great  learning  and  ability,  a  systematic 
attempt  was  made,  about  the  beginning  of  the  Christian  era, 
to  show  the  inner  harmony  between  Plato  and  Moses,  Jewish 
religious  thought  and  Greek  philosophy.  This  attempt  gave 
evidence  of  a  very  considerable  power  of  original  thought, 
and  influenced  the  future  development  alike  of  philosophy 
and  of  Christian  doctrine.  According  to  Philo's  conception, 
God,  like  the  monarch  in  the  Oriental  state,  stands  apart 
from  the  world  in  ineffable  and  unthinkable  perfection, 
and  has,  accordingly,  to  be  connected  with  actual  things 
by  a  series  of  lesser,  but  more  intelligible  forms,  which  are 
regarded,  sometimes  as  Platonic  ideas,  sometimes  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  Old  Testament  angelology.  These  are 
somehow  an  offshoot  from  God's  nature,  without  actually 


The  Later  Ethical  Period  169 

belonging  to  it  as  component  parts.  The  conception  has 
its  consummation  in  Philo's  doctrine  of  the  Logos  —  the 
mediator  of  God's  revelation  of  himself.  The  repugnance 
of  the  Hebrew  scriptures  to  Greek  conceptions  was  over- 
come by  having  recourse  to  an  ingenious  allegorical  inter- 
pretation. And  what  Philo  did  for  Jewish  thought  was 
being  done  in  less  systematic  ways  wherever  East  and 
West  came  in  contact. 


LITERATURE 

Cicero,  Philosophical  Works  (Bohn's  Library). 
Schiirer,  History  of  the  Jewish  People,  5  vols. 
Philo,  Works  (Bohn's  Library). 
Drummond,  Philo-Jttdcms,  2  vols. 
Mahaffy,  Greek  Life  and  Thought. 
Mahaffy,  Silver  Age  of  the  Greek  World. 


THE   RELIGIOUS   PERIOD 

§  1 8.     Introduction 

I.  THE  tendency  which  has  just  been  described  was  in 
part  accountable  for,  in  part  the  outgrowth  of,  a  new  di- 
rection which  was  imparting  itself  to  philosophic  thought, 
and  through  which  philosophy  was  passing  from  an  ethical, 
to  a  religious  or  theosophic  basis.  Even  where  the 
Oriental  influence  was  less  strong,  as  in  Stoicism,  there 
had  been  a  gradual  modification.  Stoicism  in  particular, 
among  the  philosophical  schools  of  the  period,  had  at- 
tempted to  act  the  part  of  a  substitute  for  religion,  and  to 
meet  the  needs  for  satisfying  which  the  national  religion 
had  long  since  lost  any  real  capacity.  Alongside  the 
priest,  who  was  absorbed  in  the  ceremonial  and  political 
duties  of  his  office,  the  philosopher  was  generally  rec- 
ognized as  the  real  spiritual  guide  of  his  time.  He 
occupied  a  position  similar  in  many  respects  to  that  of  the 
modern  clergyman.  Peculiarities  of  dress  and  appearance 
—  his  cloak  and  long  beard  —  marked  him  off  from  the 
rest  of  men.  He  was  called  on  for  advice  in  difficult 
moral  problems.  A  philosopher  was  attached  to  many  of 
the  Roman  families  as  a  sort  of  family  chaplain.  He  was 
called  in  along  with  the  physician  at  a  death-bed.  The 
discourses  which  he  was  accustomed  to  deliver  had  a  close 
analogy  to  the  modern  sermon,  and,  indeed,  are  historically 
related  to  it. 

Unfortunately,  however,  this  close  relation  to  the  needs 
of  life  was  continually  in  danger  of  becoming  obscured  in 
the  history  of  the  Stoic  school.  The  theoretical  and  logi- 
cal interest  which,  in  its  origin,  had  been  purely  prepara- 
tory, and  subservient  to  the  ideal  of  character  in  the  sage, 

170 


The  Religious  Period  171 

tended  to  break  loose  from  this  practical  aim,  and  to  intro- 
duce a  great  deal  of  dry  and  unprofitable  formalism  into 
philosophical  discussions.  The  public  discourses,  also,  like 
the  modern  fashionable  sermon,  often  came  to  sacrifice 
real  edification  to  the  desire  for  rhetorical  or  argumenta- 
tive display.  And  meanwhile  a  demand  was  growing 
more  and  more  insistent  for  some  cure  for  the  ills  of  life, 
more  thoroughgoing  than  philosophy,  even  at  its  best,  was 
offering.  The  whole  age  was  filled  with  a  sense  of  spirit- 
ual unrest.  The  rapidly  increasing  corruption  of  the  ruling 
class,  the  glaring  contrasts  of  luxury  and  misery,  the  insecu- 
rity of  life  and  property,  the  sense  of  world  weariness  which 
marked  the  passing  away  of  moral  enthusiasms,  all  brought 
home  to  men  the  feeling  that  the  world  was  growing  old,  and 
that  some  catastrophe  was  impending.  The  new  sense  of 
sin  and  evil  was  fast  outgrowing  the  ability  of  Stoicism  to 
cope  with.  The  ideal  of  virtue  was  felt  by  bitter  experi- 
ence to  lie  beyond  the  reach  of  unaided  human  effort ;  some 
higher  power  must  intervene  to  save  us,  if  we  are  to  reach 
salvation. 

This  deepened  sense  "of  need  showed  itself  in  one  direc- 
tion by  a  change  in  Stoicism  itself.  In  the  later  Stoics, 
such  as  Marcus  Aurelius,  Seneca,  and  Epictetus,  we  have 
a  strong  reaction  against  logical  subtilties,  and  an  impres- 
sive reaffirmation  of  the  essentially  practical  nature  of 
philosophy.  But  in  this  reaffirmation,  a  new  emphasis  is 
laid  upon  certain  elements.  The  religious  side  becomes 
pronounced  as  it  had  not  been  before.  Nature  takes  on 
more  the  character  of  a  God  whose  sons  men  are,  and  with 
whom  they  can  enter  into  an  emotional  relationship  of  love 
and  gratitude.  "  We  can  be  thankful  to  a  friend  for  a  few 
acres,"  says  Seneca,  "or  a  little  money;  and  yet  for  the 
freedom  and  command  of  the  whole  earth,  and  for  the 
great  benefits  of  our  being,  as  life,  health,  and  reason,  we 
look  upon  ourselves  as  under  no  obligation.  If  a  man  be- 
stows upon  us  a  house  that  is  delicately  beautified  with 
painting,  statues,  gilding,  and  marbles,  we  make  a  mighty 


172         A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

business  of  it,  and  yet  it  lies  at  the  mercy  of  a  puff  of  wind, 
the  snuff  of  a  candle,  and  a  hundred  other  accidents  to  lay 
it  in  the  dust.  And  is  it  nothing  now  to  sleep  under  the 
canopy  of  heaven,  where  we  have  the  globe  of  the  earth 
as  our  place  of  repose,  and  the  glories  of  the  heavens  for 
our  spectacle?"1 

In  like  manner,  as  has  been  said,  a  more  human  feel- 
ing toward  our  fellows,  which  also  connects  itself  closely 
with  the  religious  motive,  takes  the  place  of  the  hard 
self-righteousness  of  the  older  Stoic.  How  shall  we 
despise  one  another?  Are  not  Alexander  the  Macedo- 
nian, and  his  groom,  alike  parts  of  nature,  and  brought 
to  the  same  level  by  death  ?  Or  why  should  we  be  angry 
with  our  fellow-men,  and  blame  them  for  their  injurious 
and  evil  deeds  ?  Nature  is  working  in  them  with  the 
same  necessity  as  in  every  part  of  her  domain,  and  we 
may  as  well  be  angry  that  thistles  do  not  bring  forth 
apples,  or  that  every  pebble  on  the  ground  is  not  an  Ori- 
ental pearl.  The  immortal  Gods  are  not  vexed  because 
during  so  long  a  time  they  must  tolerate  men  continually  ; 
and  they  in  addition  take  care  of  them  in  every  way. 
Shall  you,  whose  life  is  so  brief,  become  wearied  of  en- 
during the  wicked,  and  that  too  when  you  yourself  are  one 
of  them  ?  Our  nature  is  too  closely  bound  up  with  the 
fabric  of  the  universe  to  make  it  possible  to  adopt  an 
attitude  of  antagonism  toward  our  fellows.  "A  branch 
cut  off  from  the  adjacent  branch  must  of  necessity  be  cut 
off  from  the  whole  tree  also.  So,  too,  a  man  when  he  is 
separated  from  another  man  has  fallen  off  from  the  whole 
social  community.  Now  as  to  a  branch,  another  cuts  it 
off,  but  a  man  by  his  own  act  separates  himself  from  his 
neighbor,  when  he  hates  him,  and  turns  away  from  him ; 
and  he  does  not  know  that  he  has  at  the  same  time  cut 
himself  off  from  the  whole  social  system."2 

2.  It  was  outside  of  Stoicism,  however,  that  the  demands 
of  the  time  were  met  most  completely.  The  sense  of  guilt, 

1  Cf.  Seneca,  On  Benefits,  IV,  6.  2  M.  Aurelius,  XI,  8. 


The  Religious  Period  173 

the  experience  of  the  weakness  of  the  human  will  for  self- 
reformation,  and  the  weariness  which  followed  a  long  at- 
tempt to  find  salvation  in  the  purely  intellectual  processes, 
apart  from  the  feelings  and  emotions,  all  resulted  in  an 
immense  impetus  to  the  religious  life,  especially  on  its 
superstitious  side.  Adherents  of  the  religions  of  the  East 
poured  into  Rome,  and  gained  converts  and  wealth  on  every 
side.  Their  ascetic  practices,  their  fantastic  mythologies, 
their  mysterious  purificatory  rites,  were  grasped  at  eagerly  in 
the  vain  hope  of  finding  something  on  which  to  rest.  Given 
a  more  articulate  statement,  these  same  Oriental  and  reli- 
gious tendencies  found  an  expression  in  philosophy.  The 
attempt  at  a  combination  of  Eastern  and  Western  thought 
from  the  Oriental  side,  by  the  Jew  Philo,  has  already  been 
mentioned  ;  the  same  attempt  was  made  by  Greeks  as  well. 
A  point  of  departure  was  secured  by  going  back  to  some  of 
those  aspects  of  the  previous  philosophy  which  the  more 
recent  ethical  development  had  neglected.  The  earliest 
attempt  centres  about  the  name  of  Pythagoras  —  a  name 
which,  by  reason  of  the  mythical  haze  by  which  it  was  sur- 
rounded, and  the  ascetic  features  which  were  attached  to 
it,  offered  a  convenient  handle.  A  Neo-Pythagoreanism 
arose  in  Alexandria,  as  a  half-religious  sect  with  ascetic 
tendencies,  to  which  belongs  especially  the  name  of  the 
religious  teacher  and  wonder-worker,  Apollonius  of  Tyana. 
But  Pythagoras  furnished  no  sufficient  theoretical  frame- 
work for  a  philosophy,  and  it  was,  accordingly,  to  Plato 
that  the  thought  of  the  time  more  and  more  turned,  as  the 
highest  source  and  authority  for  its  philosophical  stand- 
point. In  Plutarch  and  Apuleius  we  have  a  position  closely 
allied  to  that  of  the  Neo-Pythagoreans ;  it  appeals,  how- 
ever, to  Plato  rather  than  to  Pythagoras,  though  without 
any  great  depth  of  insight,  and  with  a  large  intermixture 
of  magic  and  demonology.  It  is  not  till  the  third  century 
A.D.  that  we  have  the  culmination  of  the  whole  religious 
period,  in  the  last  great  system  of  Greek  thought — Neo- 
Platonism. 


174        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

LITERATURE 

Seneca,  Marcus  Aurelius,  Epictetus. 

Apuleius,  Works  (Bohn's  Library). 

Lucian,  Dialogues. 

Plutarch,  Morals. 

Tredwell,  Life  of  Apollonius  of  Tyana. 

Mahaffy,  Greek  World  under  Roman  Sway. 


§  19.     Plotinus  and  Neo-Platonism 

Plotinus  (204-269  A.D.),  of  Lycopolis  in  Egypt,  came  to 
Rome  about  244,  and  taught  philosophy  there  for  twenty- 
five  years.  He  was  a  disciple,  at  Alexandria,  of  Ammonius 
Saccus,  who  is  sometimes  reckoned  as  the  founder  of  Neo- 
Platonism  ;  but  the  latter's  fame  is  dwarfed  beside  that  of 
his  greater  pupil.  Plotinus  had  also  come  in  contact  with 
Persian  ideas,  having  taken  part  in  an  expedition  of  the 
Emperor  Gordian  against  that  country,  in  which  he  barely 
escaped  with  his  life.  In  Rome  his  success  was  pro- 
nounced, and  he  even  included  an  emperor  and  an  em- 
press among  his  disciples. 

i.  The  Doctrine  of  God.  —  Neo-Platonism  is  a  religious 
philosophy,  and  so  connects  itself  with  the  consciousness  of 
evil,  and  the  felt  need  for  salvation,  which  is  characteristic  of 
the  age.  It  presupposes,  therefore,  a  certain  dualism  in 
the  ethical  life.  Such  a  dualism,  and  the  ascetic  tendency 
which  flows  from  it,  runs  through  most  of  the  thought  of 
the  times,  Christian  as  well  as  pagan.  The  consciousness 
of  a  moral  struggle  in  ourselves  reports  itself  metaphysi- 
cally as  a  division  of  the  world  into  a  good  principle  and  a 
principle  of  evil.  This  dualism,  in  its  most  thoroughgoing 
form,  is  the  basis  of  a  number  of  Oriental  philosophies  of 
religion,  —  the  Persian,  for  example,  in  which  the  history 
of  the  world  reduces  itself  to  a  contest  between  Ormuzd 
and  Ahriman,  God  and  the  devil,  light  and  darkness. 
Now,  according  to  the  psychology  of  the  self  which  was 
current,  the  obvious  interpretation  of  evil  in  ourselves  is  by 


The  Religious  Period  175 

reference  to  the  dominance  of  those  lower  appetites  more 
directly  connected  with  the  body;  it  was  natural,  there- 
fore, to  find  the  root  of  evil  in  the  body,  i.e.,  in  matter. 

This  way  of  thinking  came,  in  the  course  of  time,  to 
mark  almost  all  the  thought  of  the  period.  In  some 
instances,  as  in  the  semi-Christian  sect  of  the  Manichaeans, 
the  dualism  is  set  up  in  the  most  extreme  form  ;  and  even 
where  there  is  no  desire  to  make  it  absolute,  as  in  the  case 
of  the  more  orthodox  Christian  teachings,  and  in  Neo- 
Platonism  itself,  the  influence  still  makes  its  presence  felt. 
There  is  a  sense  that  matter  is  somehow  evil,  and  that  the 
flesh  always  and  necessarily  must  war  against  the  spirit. 
The  only  salvation,  therefore,  lies  not  in  regulating  our 
bodily  desires,  but  in  exterminating  them ;  in  outgrowing 
the  life  of  the  senses  and  leaving  it  behind,  while  we  find 
our  blessedness  in  the  pure  life  of  the  spirit,  unsoiled  by 
any  taint  of  the  body.  Plotinus  is  said  to  have  been 
ashamed  that  he  had  any  body ;  he  would  never  name  his 
parents,  or  remember  his  birthday.  From  the  human  side 
of  life  —  the  side  of  feelings,  emotions,  and  everyday 
activities  —  all  worth  is  thus  taken  away  ;  it  is  as  nothing 
to  the  soul,  the  real  self.  The  sensuous  life  is  a  mere 
stage  play  —  all  the  misery  in  it  is  only  imaginary,  all  grief 
a  mere  cheat  of  the  players. 

To  find  the  theoretical  justification  for  this,  and  to  con- 
nect it  with  the  doctrine  of  Plato,  was  comparatively  a 
simple  task.  If  it  does  not  represent  the  whole  of  Plato, 
or  even  the  best  part  of  him,  still  there  is  much  in  his 
writings  which  lends  itself  to  such  a  mode  of  thought.  He, 
too,  had  disparaged  the  life  of  sense,  and  extolled  the  life 
of  pure  thought,  or  contemplation.  For  him  the  highest 
good  had  lain  in  a  world  transcending  the  world  of  matter. 
Matter  was  an  unreal  and  untrue  existence,  a  limit  to  the 
true  being  of  the  Idea.  But  this  conception  of  Plato's  is 
carried  farther  by  the  Neo-Platonists ;  and  as  a  result  we 
have  emerging  a  philosophical  attitude  which  may  perhaps 
best  be  described  roughly  by  the  term  mysticism.  God, 


176        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

the  highest  reality,  had  still  been  for  Plato  the  world  of 
Ideas ;  and  the  Ideas  represent  an  intellectual  and  rational 
existence.  But  the  intellect  requires  data  to  work  upon ; 
it  presupposes  distinctions  and  differences,  which  it  binds 
together  into  a  unity  of  the  whole  :  while  the  way  in  which 
Plato  had  on  the  whole  tended  to  formulate  the  Idea  had 
involved  rather  the  dropping  away  of  particulars,  and  finite 
distinctions,  in  order  to  get  to  the  ultimate  reality.  The 
logical  outcome  of  such  a  process  of  abstraction  would 
really  be  simply  that  highest  abstraction  of  all  —  mere 
Being.  Plato  did  not  accept  this  result  because,  whatever 
the  form  in  which  his  theory  was  cast,  it  did  not  represent 
the  innermost  motive  of  his  thought.  But  in  Plotinus  the 
logical  issue  of  the  tendency  stands  revealed.  God,  ac- 
cordingly, becomes  the  infinite  blank,  before  which  all 
human  thought  is  powerless. 

There  is  a  way  in  which  this  might  be  interpreted,  that 
would  be  very  generally  accepted,  not  only  as  true,  but  as 
a  truism  even.  And  this  may  perhaps  confuse  us  as  to 
the  consequences  and  real  significance  of  the  conception. 
Expressed  in  religious  terms,  it  might  be  made  to  mean 
that  God  is  far  beyond  our  perfect  comprehension.  We 
cannot,  with  our  limited  thought  processes,  exhaust  the 
depths  of  His  nature ;  His  goodness  is  unsearchable,  and 
His  ways  past  finding  out;  and  we  degrade  Him  when  we 
confine  Him  within  the  boundaries  represented  by  our 
finite  notions  of  what  the  truth  must  be.  But  there  are 
two  meanings  that  may  be  attached  to  such  words  as 
these.  We  may  mean,  on  the  one  hand,  that  our  knowl- 
edge, though  it  may  be  real  as  far  as  it  goes,  is  not  ex- 
haustive ;  that  the  relations  under  which  we  see  the  truth 
are  but  a  small  part  of  all  the  relations  which  would  con- 
stitute it  for  a  perfect  intelligence  ;  and  that,  consequently, 
there  are  many  things  that  we  should  see  differently  were 
we  able  to  grasp  the  whole.  Or,  on  the  other  hand,  we 
may  mean  that  intelligence  itself  is  transcended  in  God ; 
that  in  His  truth  He  is  wholly  unintelligible,  wholly  un- 


The  Religious  Period  177 

knowable,  the  infinite  background  marked  by  an  utter 
absence  of  relations.  We  attain  to  Him,  not  by  making 
our  knowledge  more  complete,  correcting  what  we  know 
by  a  richer  and  deeper  knowledge,  but  by  giving  up  our 
attempt  at  comprehension,  and  allowing  the  distinct  con- 
ceptions of  the  intellect  to  fade  away  into  the  haze  of  an 
immediate  identity  of  feeling. 

It  is  this  latter  path  which  mysticism  takes.  To  know 
God  it  is  not  enough,  as  with  Plato,  to  get  rid  of  the  sen- 
suous and  bodily  life ;  we  must  get  rid  of  the  intellect  as 
well.  We  must  separate  ourselves  from  all  things  and 
be  alone ;  must  cut  loose  from  every  definite  fact  that  can 
occupy  the  mind,  and  reduce  this  to  a  blank.  God  thus 
lies  beyond  even  the  Idea  itself.  All  we  can  say  of  Him 
is  that  He  is  the  ultimate  unity ;  nay,  we  cannot  say  even 
so  much  as  this,  for  in  speaking  of  Him  as  unity,  we  are 
predicating  an  idea  of  Him,  and  so  are  limiting  His  abso- 
lute indeterminateness.  God  transcends  everything  that 
we  can  say  or  think.  We  cannot  say  so  much  as  that  He 
exists,  for  He  transcends  existence  itself.  He  does  not 
live,  for  it  is  He  who  gives  life.  He  is  not  good,  for  He 
stands  above  goodness.  He  neither  knows  anything,  nor 
has  anything  of  which  He  is  ignorant,  for  knowledge  has 
no  meaning  in  connection  with  His  nature.  We  recognize 
Him  only  by  a  blind  feeling  of  '  something  real,'  "  as  those 
who  energize  enthusiastically,  and  become  divinely  inspired, 
perceive,  indeed,  that  they  have  something  greater  in 
themselves,  though  they  do  not  know  what  it  is."1  The 
only  truth  is  a  negative  truth ;  to  reach  Him  we  must 
abstract  from  all  positive  attributes. 

The  result  is,  that  no  intellectual  processes  will  bring  us 
into  that  immediate  contact  with  God  which  is  salvation. 
The  ultimate  method  of  religion  is  not  thought,  but  mystic 
contemplation,  or  feeling.  The  Neo-Platonist  does  not, 
indeed,  as  some  mystics  have  done,  despise  the  intellectual 
life,  and  attempt  by  a  single  leap  to  reach  the  consumma- 

1  Plotinus,  V,  3,  14. 
M 


178         A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

tion  of  identity  with  God.  The  cultivation  of  the  intel- 
lectual insight  is  an  essential  task ;  but  there  remains  a 
step  still  to  be  taken.  "  The  wizard  king  builds  his  tower 
of  speculation  by  the  hands  of  human  workmen  till  he 
reaches  the  top  story,  and  then  summons  his  genii  to 
fashion  the  battlements  of  adamant,  and  crown  them  with 
starry  fire."  J  The  final  goal  is  that  ecstasy  in  which  all 
our  finite  personality,  thought,  and  self-consciousness  drop 
away,  and  we  melt  to  a  oneness  with  the  Absolute,  wherein 
no  shade  of  difference  enters. 

2.  The  Relation  of  God  and  the  World.  —  But  now 
we  seem  to  have  reached  a  position  which  is  not  wholly 
consistent  with  the  one  from  which  we  started.  This  final 
standpoint  appears  to  be  that  of  a  pantheistic  absorption 
of  all  things  in  the  one  Absolute,  whereas  we  started, 
on  the  ethical  side,  with  a  dualism  which  sets  matter 
as  a  principle  of  evil  over  against  God.  The  same  diffi- 
culty existed  for  Plato  as  well,  and  he  never  was  able 
to  account  satisfactorily  for  there  being  such  a  thing  as  a 
material  universe,  in  addition  to  the  pure  Ideas.  With  Neo- 
Platonism  the  difficulty  is  even  greater.  If  all  distinctions 
are  essentially  unreal,  and  the  sole  reality  is  the  One,  un- 
knowable and  unapproachable,  cloaked  in  ineffable  noth- 
ingness, do  we  not  seem  by  one  stroke  to  have  blotted  out 
the  whole  universe  of  our  experience  as  less  even  than  a 
dream  ?  Is  there  any  possible  way  of  accounting  even  for 
the  delusive  appearance  of  its  existence  ?  The  Platonist 
has  the  hard  task  of  trying  to  reconcile  the  dualism  which 
not  only  his  ethical  presuppositions,  but  the  indubitable 
facts  of  life  also,  force  upon  him,  with  the  unity  for  which, 
alike  as  a  metaphysician  and  as  a  mystic,  he  is  bound  to 
strive. 

In  reality  the  task  is  an  impossible  one.  So  long  as  we 
admit  the  existence  of  finite  experience  in  any  sense,  there 
is  a  flaw  in  the  perfection  of  such  an  Absolute  which  no 
logic  can  overcome.  But  the  Platonist  conceals  the  impos- 

1  Vaughan,  Hours  with  the  Mystics,  I,  77. 


The  Religious  Period  179 

sibility  by  two  considerations,  which  it  seems  to  him  help 
solve  the  problem.  In  the  first  place,  he  declares,  with 
Plato,  that  this  principle  which  lies  at  the  basis  of  matter 
is  not  a  positive  something,  but  wholly  negative.  Matter 
is  no  substantial  substratum  out  of  which,  as  material,  the 
world  is  built,  but  mere  not-being,  absence  of  being,  a 
negative  limit  to  reality.  Evil,  therefore,  is  not,  as  the  Man- 
ichaeans,  e.g.,  thought,  a  substantial  fact  standing  over 
against  the  good  as  a  positive  constituent  of  the  world. 
Just  in  so  far  as  a  thing  is,  as  it  partakes  of  reality,  it  is 
good ;  it  is  evil  or  material  only  in  so  far  as  it  is  not,  in 
so  far  as  it  lacks  being.  But  while  verbally  this  seems  to 
make  evil  and  matter  nothing  at  all,  it  is  still  a  positive 
sort  of  nothing.  Why,  otherwise,  should  not  all  reality  be 
wholly  positive,  as  God  is,  and  possess  no  lack  ?  The  not- 
being  which  constitutes  evil  evidently  stands  opposed  to 
the  good  as  a  real  limit  which  infects  its  perfection,  and 
the  dualism,  however  attenuated  it  may  appear,  is  still  a 
stubborn  fact. 

But  there  is  another  device  still  which  is  characteristic 
of  the  Neo-Platonist  philosophy.  The  feeling  is  wide- 
spread throughout  the  attempts  at  religious  philosophiz- 
ing to  which  the  period  gives  rise,  that  the  gap  between 
God  and  matter  can  be  bridged  over,  if  we  can  introduce 
a  graduated  scale  of  existence,  connecting  the  two  ex- 
tremes by  a  series  of  smaller  differences.  In  the  Logos 
doctrine  of  Philo,  the  countless  aeons  of  the  Christian 
Gnostics,  the  demonology  of  Plutarch  and  others  of  the 
Greeks,  we  have  such  attempts  to  mediate  between  the 
supreme  God,  and  those  facts  of  the  material  world  which 
are  thought  to  be  unworthy  of  him.  Of  course,  theoreti- 
cally, there  is  not  the  slightest  advantage  which  a  small 
gap  has  over  a  large  one  ;  the  difficulty  is  that  there  should 
be  any  gap  at  all.  Still  it  is  a  help  to  the  imagination 
if  the  transition  can  be  made  less  noticeable.  And  the 
delegation  of  the  responsibility  for  imperfections  to  some 
lesser  and  derived  power  provides  a  makeshift  which, 


180        A  Students  History  of  Philosophy 

temporarily  at  least,  seems  to  render  it  possible  to  retain, 
along  with  these  imperfections,  the  notion  of  perfection 
also. 

In  Neo-Platonism  this  takes  the  form  of  a  theory  of 
Emanation.  Finite  existence  is  accounted  for  as  a  pro- 
gressive falling  away  from  an  original  perfection.  Of 
course  the  ground  of  this  downward  passage  is  ultimately 
unexplainable ;  but  granting  that  its  reality  is  required  to 
account  for  the  facts  of  existence,  we  may  by  the  use  of 
metaphor  shadow  it  forth  to  ourselves  partially  and  ob- 
scurely. It  cannot  be  regarded  as  a  partition  of  the  origi- 
nal unity,  for  that  is  no  sum  of  parts ;  it  is  an  indivisible 
whole,  which  still  abides  in  its  completeness.  The  process 
may  more  truly  be  compared  to  the  gleaming  of  a  bright 
body,  to  the  radiation  of  the  sun,  to  a  cup  which  eter- 
nally overflows  because  its  contents  are  infinite  and  can- 
not be  confined  within  it.  The  figure  of  light  is  the  one 
which  on  the  whole  is  least  inadequate.  As  light  shines 
into  the  darkness  and  illuminates  it,  without  at  the  same 
time  suffering  in  its  own  existence,  so  the  workings  of  the 
Eternal  One  overflow  from  its  central  being,  without  thereby 
lessening  in  any  degree  the  reality  of  jtheir  source.  And 
as  the  brightness  of  the  light  decreases  continually  in  in- 
tensity, until  it  loses  itself  in  the  surrounding  darkness,  so 
the  power  of  the  Absolute  expresses  itself  in  more  and 
more  diluted  form  in  the  hierarchy  of  the  phenomenal 
world.  In  general,  this  hierarchy  is  represented  by  the 
three  stages  of  mind  or  rational  spirit,  soul,  and  body. 
Each  stage  has  a  dual  aspect.  On  the  one  hand  it  looks 
toward,  and  is  constituted  by,  the  truer  reality  in  the  scale 
of  being  above ;  it  is  an  imitation  of  this,  as  the  spoken 
words  imitate  or  represent  the  thought  in  the  mind.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  serves  to  carry  on  the  working  of  this 
reality  to  the  next  lower  stage.  The  material  world  is  the 
lowest  stage  of  all  —  an  image  in  an  image,  the  shadow  of 
a  shadow,  where  the  negative  element,  not-being,  reaches 
its  maximum.  Still  it  is  not  positively  evil ;  it  is  evil  only 


The  Religious  Period  181 

in  so  far  as  it  is  not.  All  the  reality  which  it  possesses  is 
due  to  the  working  of  spirit,  and  in  so  far  as  it  is  at  all, 
it  is  good. 

In  this  way  Plotinus  finds  a  suggestion  for  the  first  sys- 
tematic attempt  at  a  metaphysics  of  beauty,  a  special  phi- 
losophy of  aesthetics.  Beauty  is  the  shining  through  of 
the  spiritual  reality,  in  the  material  forms  whose  truth  this 
reality  constitutes.  And  this  tempers  the  asceticism  of 
Plotinus.  "  To  despise  the  world,  and  the  Gods,  and  other 
beautiful  natures  that  are  contained  in  it,  is  not  to  become 
a  good  man.  He  who  loves  anything  is  delighted  with 
everything  which  is  allied  to  the  object  of  his  love  ;  for  you 
also  love  the  children  of  the  father  whom  you  love.  But 
every  soul  is  the  daughter  of  the  father  of  the  universe."  * 
"  His  mind  must  be  dull  and  sluggish  in  the  extreme,  and 
incapable  of  being  incited  to  anything  else,  who,  in  see- 
ing all  the  beautiful  objects  of  the  sensible  world,  all  this 
symmetry  and  great  arrangement  of  things,  and  the  form 
apparent  in  the  stars,  though  so  remote,  is  not  from  this 
view  mentally  agitated,  and  does  not  venerate  them  as 
admirable  productions  of  still  more  admirable  causes."  2 

3.  The  Process  of  Salvation.  —  As  the  phenomenal 
world  has  its  being  in  this  falling  away  from  the  Abso- 
lute, so  there  remain  in  it  traces  of  its  lost  estate,  and 
the  longing  to  return  to  its  original  perfection.  This 
return  forms  the  substance  of  the  ethical  and  religious 
life.  We  must  rid  ourselves  of  the  restrictions  of  mat- 
ter, and,  rising  above  the  realm  of  the  particular  and  finite, 
retrace  our  steps  toward  God.  In  general,  the  process 
consists  in  penetrating  to  the  universal  ideas  which 
underlie  the  world  of  phenomena,  and  so  accustoming 
the  soul  to  its  own  proper  food.  "  The  soul  perceives 
temperance  and  justice  in  the  intellection  of  herself,  and 
of  that  which  she  formerly  was,  and  views  them  like 
statues  established  in  herself  which  through  time  have 
become  covered  with  rust.  These  she  then  purifies,  just 

1  Plotinus,  II,  9,  1 6.  2  Ibid. 


1 82         A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

as  if  gold  were  animated,  and,  in  consequence  of  being 
incrusted  with  earth,  not  perceiving  itself  to  be  gold, 
should  be  ignorant  of  itself  ;  but  afterward,  shaking  off 
the  earth  which  adheres  to  it,  should  be  filled  with  admira- 
tion in  beholding  itself  pure  and  alone."  1  This  is  neces- 
sarily a  slow  process.  The  soul  is  like  "children  who, 
immediately  torn  from  their  parents,  and  for  a  long  time 
nurtured  at  a  great  distance  from  them,  become  ignorant 
both  of  themselves  and  their  parents ;"  2  and  so  it  does  not 
respond  at  once.  It  is  not  fitted  for  the  sudden  burst  of 
light  which  marks  the  final  vision,  and  so  it  must  be  prepared 
by  degrees,  through  the  contemplation  of  beautiful  objects, 
beautiful  sentiments,  beautiful  actions,  beautiful  souls. 
"  All  that  tends  to  purify  and  elevate  the  mind  will  assist 
in  this  attainment,  and  there  are  three  different  roads  by 
which  the  end  may  be  reached.  The  love  of  beauty  which 
exalts  the  poet,  that  devotion  to  the  one  and  that  ascent 
of  science  which  makes  the  ambition  of  the  philosopher, 
and  that  love  and  those  prayers  by  which  some  devout 
and  ardent  soul  tends  in  its  moral  purity  toward  perfec- 
tion—  these  are  the  great  highways  conducting  to  that 
height  above  the  actual  and  the  particular,  where  we  stand 
in  the  immediate  presence  of  the  infinite,  who  shines  out 
as  from  the  deeps  of  the  soul."  3 

But  in  all  this  the  soul  must  be  on  its  guard  continually 
not  to  remain  entangled  in  mere  particulars.  This  consti- 
tutes the  imperfection  of  the  life  of  moral  conduct  as  an  ulti- 
mate end.  In  a  good  deed  there  is  implicit  a  certain  univer- 
sal value  ;  but  it  is  only  ascetic  contemplation  which  is  able 
to  free  this  ideal  fact  from  the  unessentials  in  which  it  is 
immersed.  As  Ulysses  from  the  magician  Circe,  we  must 
flee  to  our  native  land,  and  abandon  wholly  this  dangerous 
realm.  The  love  of  God  means  the  giving  up  of  all 
earthly  loves.  And  when  one  has  seen  God  face  to  face, 
he  cares  for  no  minor  beauties.  As  one  who,  entering 

1  Plotinus,  IV,  7,  10.  2  V,  i,  i. 

8  Vaughan,  Hours  with  the  Mystics,  Vol.  I,  p.  81. 


The  Religious  Period  183 

into  the  interior  of  the  adytum,  leaves  behind  all  the 
statues  in  the  temple,  or  as  those  who  enter  the  sanctu- 
aries purify  themselves,  laying  aside  their  garments,  and 
enter  naked,  so  should  the  soul  approach  its  goal.  "  This, 
therefore,  is  the  life  of  the  Gods,  and  of  divine  and  happy 
men  —  a  liberation  from  all  terrene  affairs,  a  life  unac- 
companied with  human  pleasures,  a  flight  of  the  alone 
to  the  alone."  J  An  immortality  in  the  ordinary  sense  is 
only  a  denial  of  true  life  ;  "  a  resurrection  with  body  is  a 
transmigration  from  sleep  to  sleep,  like  a  man  passing  in 
the  dark  from  bed  to  bed."  2  The  true  goal  is  only  reached 
when  the  soul  loses  all  thought,  desire,  and  activity,  all 
individual  life,  in  an  ecstasy  of  immediate  union  with  God. 
"  This  is  the  true  end  of  the  soul,  to  come  into  contact 
with  his  light,  and  to  behold  him  through  it,  not  by  the 
light  of  another  thing,  but  to  perceive  that  very  thing 
itself  through  which  it  sees."  3  In  this  '  darkness  which 
transcends  all  gnostic  illumination,'  it  does  not  see  an- 
other, but  becomes  one  with  God,  absorbed,  conjoining 
centre  with  centre. 

4.  Later  Neo-Platonism.  —  The  spiritualization  of  the 
world  in  which  Neo-Platonism  results,  and  the  absence  of 
any  adequate  feeling  for  natural  law,  opened  the  way  for  an 
appeal  to  non-physical  agencies  in  the  explanation  of  events, 
which  might  easily  become  fantastic ;  and  among  the  suc- 
cessors of  Plotinus  this  is  what  took  place.  The  world 
becomes  a  great  hierarchy  of  souls  —  Gods,  demons,  men, 
—  and  the  mystical  affinities  and  relationships  between 
souls,  which  find  expression  in  divination,  astrology,  and 
magical  rites,  tend  to  take  the  place  of  sober  investigation. 
Jamblicus,  the  founder  of  Syrian  Neo-Platonism,  has  a 
special  connection  with  this  tendency. 

Historically,  this  last  outcome  of  Greek  thought  gets 
an  importance  through  making  itself  the  champion  of 
Paganism,  in  the  now  losing  struggle  which  this  was  carry- 
ing on  with  Christianity.  The  struggle  was  wholly  unsuc- 

i  Plotinus,  VI,  9,  1 1.  2  III,  6,  6.  «  V,  3,  17. 


184        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

cessful.  The  future  belonged  to  Christianity ;  philosophy 
could  hope  to  survive,  not  by  antagonizing  it,  and  joining 
forces  with  its  rival,  but  by  accepting  the  new  and  vig- 
orous contribution  which  it  was  making  to  the  life  of  the 
world,  and  moulding  this  into  its  own  forms.  For  a 
moment  Paganism  seemed  to  have  a  chance  of  success, 
when  the  Emperor  Julian,  called  by  Christians  the  Apos- 
tate—  a  man  trained  in  the  school  of  the  Neo-Platonists  — 
attempted  to  reverse  the  verdict  of  history.  But  a  half- 
sentimental  regret  for  the  beauty  of  the  pagan  past  was 
no  match  for  the  living  forces  of  the  present ;  and  at  the 
death  of  Julian  his  plans  came  to  nothing.  The  last 
refuge  of  Neo-Platonism  was  the  Academy  at  Athens,  in 
connection  with  which  the  name  of  Proclus  is  the  most 
important.  But  in  529  A.D.  the  Academy  was  closed  by 
order  of  the  Emperor  Justinian,  the  teaching  of  heathen 
philosophy  was  forbidden,  and  the  philosophers  driven 
into  exile. 

LITERATURE 

Vaughan,  Hours  with  the  Mystics. 
Plotinus,  Enneads  (Bohn's  Library). 
Whittaker,  The  Neo-Platonists. 
Bigg,  Neo-Platonism. 


§  20.     Christianity.     The  Church  Fathers.    Augustine 

i.  The  new  power  which  thus  seemed  to  have  sup- 
planted the  old  was,  in  its  inception,  not  a  philosophy,  but 
a  life.  Questions  of  theory  occupied  the  early  disciples 
but  little ;  belief  in  God,  and  the  influence  of  the  dominant 
personality  of  Christ  in  renewing  the  life  of  the  soul  and 
shaping  it  into  His  own  likeness,  were  the  central  features 
of  the  new  religion.  The  evidences  of  acceptance  with 
God  were  the  fruits  of  love,  peace,  righteousness,  not  a 
belief  in  any  set  of  doctrines. 


The  Religious  Period  185 

Originally,  then,  Christianity  had  no  conscious  depend- 
ence on  philosophical  thought.  And  among  many  of  the 
early  fathers,  as,  for  example,  Tertullian,  there  was  a  disposi- 
tion to  be  openly  hostile  to  the  encroachments  of  philosophy, 
or  reason,  as  opposed  to  the  purity  and  simplicity  of  faith 
in  the  gospel.  Nevertheless,  if  Christianity  was  to  con- 
tinue to  expand,  its  coming  under  the  influence  of  Greek 
forms  of  thought  was  a  foregone  conclusion.  As  converts 
began  to  come  in  from  the  Gentile  world,  they  would  bring 
with  them  inevitably  their  former  modes  of  thinking. 
Some  of  them,  like  Justin  Martyr,  had  been  philosophers 
before  they  became  Christians.  They  had  sought  for 
truth  as  Stoics,  and  Peripatetics,  and  Pythagoreans ;  and 
now  that  they  had  found  the  goal  of  their  seeking  in  the 
religion  of  Christ,  they  could  not  but  look  at  this  in  terms 
of  the  problems  they  had  previously  been  trying  to  solve, 
and  regard  it  as  the  true  philosophy,  as  well  as  the  true 
life.  The  necessity  for  justifying  themselves  to  the  heathen 
world  would  lead  in  the  same  direction. 

Of  course  there  was  danger  in  this.  In  many  cases  the 
theoretical  interest  began  to  overshadow  the  practical,  even 
sometimes  to  displace  it.  By  a  very  considerable  body  of 
Christians,  the  essential  thing  came  to  be  looked  upon, 
not  as  a  Christ-like  character,  but  as  a  superior  and  eso- 
teric knowledge  (gnosis\  which  was  really  only  a  philos- 
ophy, constructed,  though  more  fantastically,  along  the 
lines  of  Neo-Pythagoreanism  and  Neo-Platonism.  The 
Christian  tinge  was  sometimes  merely  nominal.  This 
attempt  by  Gnosticism  to  capture  the  new  religion  in  the 
interests  of  Graeco-Oriental  philosophy,  constituted  one 
of  the  earliest  and  gravest  dangers  to  the  Church,  which 
was  only  averted  after  many  years  of  stubborn  controversy. 
But  although  the  Gnostics  were  defeated,  they  left  their 
mark  upon  their  antagonists.  The  Church  never  went  back 
to  the  primitive  form  of  undogmatic  Christianity  which 
had  represented  its  early  type ;  orthodoxy  became  identi- 
fied with  a  middle  course  between  the  two  extremes.  It 


1 86        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

rejected  such  doctrines  as  were  inconsistent  with  the 
genius  of  Christianity ;  but  it  began,  nevertheless,  to  lay 
greater  stress  upon  doctrinal  agreement  and  theoretical 
formulation. 

For  this  work  it  had  of  necessity  to  make  use  of  the 
intellectual  tools  which  Greek  philosophy  had  forged. 
There  was  a  more  conscious  use  of  these  in  some  cases 
than  in  others.  In  Alexandria,  especially,  where  philo- 
sophical traditions  were  strong,  there  arose  a  school  of 
philosophical  theologians,  of  which  Origen  (185-254)  is 
the  most  important  representative.  These  attempted 
with  clear  insight,  and  very  considerable  ability,  to  Plato- 
nize  theology.  And  even  when  theology  supposed  it  was 
dispensing  with  the  help  of  philosophy,  it  was  still  de- 
pendent upon  it  at  every  step.  From  one  point  of  view 
this  involved  a  loss  to  Christianity.  The  substitution  of 
dogma  for  the  free  spirit  of  devotion,  which  finds  the  end 
of  the  religious  life  in  a  personal  love  and  service,  went 
along  necessarily  with  a  certain  lowering  of  the  standard, 
and  misplacement  of  emphasis.  But  still  the  change 
could  hardly  have  been  avoided,  if  Christianity  was  to  do 
the  work  it  actually  succeeded  in  doing.  As  time  went 
on,  the  whole  character  of  the  Church  altered.  It  became, 
of  course,  larger  and  more  unwieldy.  Instead  of  the  little 
groups  of  earnest  disciples,  fully  permeated  by  the  spirit 
of  the  Gospel,  there  began  to  flock  to  it,  attracted  by  its 
growing  success,  a  multitude  of  men  who  were  only  super- 
ficially affected  by  their  new  professions.  Later  on,  when 
the  Empire  fell,  it  was  the  Church  which  more  and  more 
was  compelled  to  assume  many  of  the  civil  functions  of 
society,  if  anarchy  was  to  be  averted.  Under  these  con- 
ditions, nothing  but  a  strong  ecclesiastical  organization,  and 
a  definitely  formulated  creed,  could  have  held  the  Church 
together  as  a  single  catholic  body ;  and  without  such  a 
unity  its  work  could  not  have  been  done.  The  Church 
creed  preserved  Christianity  on  a  distinctly  lower  level 
than  was  represented  in  primitive  Apostolic  times,  but 


The  Religious  Period  187 

it  did  preserve  it.  It  formed  a  standard  of  belief  and  a 
rallying-point  which  was  definite  and  objective,  and  which, 
by  bringing  to  bear  a  strong  authority,  prevented  the 
breaking  up  of  the  new  faith  into  a  multitude  of  jarring 
local  sects. 

2.  This  creation  of  an  orthodox  body  of  doctrine  was  no 
immediate  result,  but  a  work  which  extended  through 
several  centuries.  During  this  time  the  Church  had  to 
meet  and  conquer  numerous  heresies  —  tendencies,  that  is, 
which  afterward  were  pronounced  heresies  by  their  vic- 
torious opponents,  though  there  were  moments  when  it 
seemed  that  they  might  themselves  conquer  and  be  ac- 
cepted as  the  orthodox  opinion.  In  the  long  run,  however, 
the  Church  was  led  to  avoid  such  dogmas  as  were  incon- 
sistent with  the  work  marked  out  for  it.  If  now  we  com- 
pare the  standpoint  which  finally  became  fixed  as  the 
standpoint  of  the  Church,  with  the  purely  philosophical 
development  of  Neo-Platonism  which  falls  within  the  same 
general  period,  we  shall  find  that  while  the  two  were  en- 
gaged in  general  with  much  the  same  problems,  their 
answers  naturally  differ  in  considerable  degree. 

Christian  theology  of  course  agrees  with  Neo-Platonism 
in  being  a  religious  philosophy  —  a  philosophy  dealing 
with  God  and  His  relation  to  the  world,  the  nature  of  sin,  or 
evil,  and  the  way  of  salvation.  They  agree,  furthermore,  in 
that  both  find  the  source  of  knowledge,  not  in  the  discur- 
sive exercise  of  reason,  but  rather  in  an  immediate  revela- 
tion. But  here  they  tend  to  separate.  For  the  Platonist, 
the  revelation  is  the  one  which  comes  directly  to  the  phi- 
losopher in  those  moments  of  ecstasy  in  which  his  soul 
becomes  identical  with  the  divine  being  itself.  This  recog- 
nition of  the  side  of  immediate  experience  is  also  found, 
it  is  true,  in  Christianity,  in  the  doctrine  of  the  Holy 
Spirit ;  and  in  Christian  mysticism  a  direct  Neo-Platonist 
influence  continues  even  until  modern  times.  But  circum- 
stances compelled  the  Church  to  emphasize  rather  the  fact 
of  a  single  historical  revelation.  In  the  primitive  Church, 


1 88        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

where  conditions  were  freer,  and  the  spiritual  life  more 
spontaneous,  the  claims  to  inspiration  were  common,  and 
prophets,  teachers,  and  apostles  were  numerous.  But  even 
here  a  dangerous  license  began  to  show  itself ;  and  the 
farther  Christianity  got  away  from  the  original  source, 
the  more  the  need  of  some  commonly  accepted  standard 
became  evident.  That  standard  could  be  nothing  but  con- 
formity with  the  teachings  of  Christ  and  His  immediate 
disciples.  Accordingly,  the  insistence  upon  the  authority 
of  a  definite  historical  revelation  in  the  past  came  to  be 
more  and  more  the  position  of  the  orthodox  body  of  Chris- 
tians. This  was  mediated  at  first  by  oral  tradition ;  and 
then,  as  time  made  tradition  less  reliable,  by  a  gradually 
formed  canon  of  sacred  writings,  that  were  believed  to  go 
back  to  Apostles  and  eye-witnesses.  And  when  now  the 
Montanists  claimed  the  right  to  do  just  what  the  early 
Church  had  done,  and  to  supplement  this  historical  author- 
ity by  the  immediate  testimony  of  prophetic  inspiration, 
the  attempt  was  recognized  as  dangerously  lawless,  and 
condemned  as  a  heresy. 

The  problem  of  evil  also  reached  its  orthodox  solution 
only  after  continued  controversy.  In  the  various  heretical 
sects,  nearly  every  current  answer  to  the  problem  was 
reproduced,  down  to  the  baldest  dualism  of  the  good  and 
evil  principle.  The  temptation  to  find  the  root  of  evil  in 
matter  was  very  strong.  Nowhere  was  the  antagonism 
between  the  life  of  the  flesh  and  the  life  of  the  spirit 
more  pronounced  than  in  the  experience  of  Christians,  or 
the  necessity  more  keenly  felt  of  mortifying  the  deeds  of 
the  body  for  the  salvation  of  the  soul.  But  the  central  fact 
of  the  Incarnation,  along  with  a  feeling  for  the  dignity  and 
the  infinitude  of  God,  caused  the  Church  to  reject  all  attempts 
to  regard  matter  as  essentially  evil.  The  stronger  sense 
of  sin  which  characterized  the  Christian  consciousness 
kept  it  also  from  being  satisfied  with  the  Neo-Platonist 
doctrine  of  evil  as  mere  privation,  or  absence  of  reality. 
Christianity  found  a  solution,  instead,  in  the  moral  realm, 


The  Religious  Period  189 

by  having  recourse  to  the  freedom  of  the  will.  God  created 
all  finite  beings  good,  even  the  very  devil ;  but  He  gave 
them  the  power  to  choose  for  themselves.  By  falling  away 
from  God  and  choosing  evil,  they  have  perverted  the  pow- 
ers which  might  have  brought  them  blessedness.  Evil  is 
thus  the  fault  of  the  creature,  not  of  the  creator.  It  is 
true  that  along  with  this  there  was  a  good  deal  of  practical 
dualism.  The  tendency  to  regard  the  body  as  naturally 
evil  and  apart  from  God,  and  the  ascetic  life  resulting  from 
such  a  conception,  gained  a  firm  foothold  in  the  Church, 
and  became  invested  with  an  odor  of  superior  sanctity. 
But  this  feeling  did  not  succeed  in  getting  itself  expressed 
consistently  in  the  form  of  dogma.  On  the  contrary,  in 
the  doctrine  of  the  resurrection  of  the  body,  the  Church 
definitely  cut  loose  from  the  Neo-Platonic  conception  of 
blessedness  as  a  complete  emancipation  from  the  bodily 
life.  By  including  the  body  within  the  scope  of  salvation, 
it  admitted  this  as  an  essential  part  of  man's  nature,  and, 
therefore,  potentially  at  least,  as  sacred. 

By  rejecting  dualism,  Christianity  was  left  the  problem 
of  reconciling  the  existence  of  the  phenomenal  world  with 
the  absolute  nature  of  God;  and  here  also  its  attitude  is 
opposed  to  that  of  Neo-Platonism.  The  combining  of  a 
refusal  to  regard  the  world  as  an  independent  and  eternal 
existence  opposed  to  God,  with  the  refusal  to  make  it  either 
a  part  of  God  Himself,  or  an  emanation  from  His  being, 
gave  rise  to  the  orthodox  theory  of  the  creation  of  the 
world  out  of  nothing.  In  this  way  the  world  can  be  looked 
upon  as  dependent  wholly  upon  God's  power,  and  yet  as 
not  in  any  sense  identical  with  Him.  This  latter  —  pan- 
theistic—  standpoint  the  Church  consistently  frowned 
upon,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  philosophical  frame- 
work of  its  theology,  in  so  far  as  it  was  taken  from  the 
Greeks,  was  all  the  time  drawing  it  in  that  direction. 
But  counteracting  this  logical  compulsion,  and  counter- 
acting it  for  the  most  part  successfully,  there  was  another 
factor  which  the  influence  of  Christianity  had  much  to 


190        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

do  in  raising  to  a  position  of  importance  —  the  feeling  for 
personality. 

In  early  times,  as  has  been  said,  the  individual  had  been 
largely  swallowed  up  in  the  community  life.  The  tribe  or 
state,  as  representing  this,  had  stood  before  his  vision  as 
supreme,  and  his  own  rights  and  importance  as  nothing  in 
comparison  with  the  whole  to  which  he  belonged.  The 
Sophists  had  broken  up  this  unity,  and  had  set  the  private 
individual  over  against  the  state ;  but  they  had  made  the 
separation  too  violent,  and  so  their  work  had  been  only 
negative  and  revolutionary.  The  same  general  outcome  was 
brought  about  now  in  connection  with  the  Roman  state.  The 
early  Roman,  in  a  peculiarly  pronounced  way,  lived  his 
whole  life  with  reference  to  the  Republic,  and  made  the 
glory  of  his  country  the  main  end  of  all  his  labor.  But 
now  that  the  heroic  days  of  Rome  were  over,  the  negative 
tendencies  of  philosophy  again  had  a  chance  to  assert 
themselves.  The  young  and  vigorous  Republic  might 
seem  an  end  to  which  it  was  worth  while  for  a  man  to 
devote  his  life  ;  an  Empire,  luxurious  and  corrupt,  where 
the  will  of  a  single  man  was  supreme,  and  that  man  often 
a  monster  of  iniquity  and  madness,  could  not  continue  to 
arouse  the  enthusiasm  necessary  to  give  it  a  place  among 
rational  motives  and  ideals.  Meanwhile  the  rule  of  Rome 
appeared  so  inevitable,  that  any  other  and  worthier  national 
life  to  take  its  place  seemed  hopeless.  The  individual  man 
was  thrown  back  upon  himself,  and  a  demand  was  set  up 
for  a  satisfaction  which  should  come  home  to  him  singly 
and  personally. 

In  the  case  of  the  few  to  whom  belonged  strength 
and  the  assurance  of  success,  this  showed  itself  in  an  un- 
bridled egoism  and  self-seeking.  But  for  the  mass  of  men, 
for  whom  the  prizes  of  life  were  out  of  reach,  some  more 
definite  philosophy  was  needed.  The  hopelessness  of  the 
outlook,  however,  reported  itself  in  the  prevalent  severity 
and  rigor  of  the  ideal.  In  Stoicism,  and  in  the  asceticism 
of  the  religious  tendencies,  there  is  the  same  inability  to 


The  Religious  Period  191 

get  any  positive  and  hopeful  content  into  life.  Since  man 
must  needs  suffer,  let  him  make  a  virtue  of  necessity.  Let 
him  cease  striving  for  the  happiness  which  is  beyond  his 
reach,  and  take  what  satisfaction  he  can  in  his  power  to  do 
without.  Meanwhile  such  a  conception  could  not  attract  to 
itself  any  great  enthusiasm,  and  it  was  too  negative  to  set  in 
motion  forces  that  should  influence  powerfully  the  life  of 
mankind  at  large.  The  natural  desire  of  men  in  general 
was  for  a  warmer  and  more  comforting  ideal ;  they  were  not 
ready  to  abandon  the  dream  of  happiness.  Vague  hopes 
began  to  stir  of  a  deliverer  who  should  come  to  raise  the 
burden  of  the  poor,  and  introduce  a  new  and  better  era  — 
hopes  which  found  expression  here  and  there  in  slave  insur- 
rections. But  still  the  repressive  and  ascetic  ideal  did  help 
to  deepen  the  feeling  of  individuality.  It  called  forth  the 
sense  of  power  and  responsibility  in  the  man  who  thus  was 
bending  all  his  energies  to  crushing  out  his  desires  and 
passions ;  and  in  this  way  it  cleared  the  path  for  a  more 
positive  meaning  to  personality. 

Such  a  content  to  the  individual  life  Christianity  brought. 
Here,  also,  there  was  repression  and  conflict;  but  it  was  no 
longer  a  hopeless  conflict,  ending  with  itself.  Man  crushed 
out  the  old  self,  only  that  God  might  enter  and  bring  a 
more  abounding  life.  The  feelings  no  longer  were  starved ; 
they  were  set  free,  and  stimulated  to  the  utmost.  And 
with  this  appeal  to  his  emotional  life,  the  value  of  man 
as  such  was  felt  as  it  had  not  been  before.  The  concep- 
tion of  God  as  a  potentate,  to  be  approached  only  through 
rites  and  ceremonies  which  were  primarily  a  state  matter, 
gave  place  to  the  thought  of  Him  as  a  father,  in  direct 
contact  with  each  of  His  children.  And  when  God  could 
reveal  Himself  immediately  to  the  humblest  man,  when  He 
loved  him,  and  was  seeking  for  his  love  in  return,  and 
eager  for  his  salvation,  then  not  simply  humanity  in  the  large, 
but  each  individual  man,  became  a  thing  of  infinite  worth. 
Wherever  this  conception  really  came  home  to  men,  it 
worked  an  immediate  and  a  vast  change  in  all  the  ideals 


192        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

of  society.  The  artificial  barriers  of  rich  and  poor,  slave 
and  free,  noble  and  common,  became  a  thing  of  no  impor- 
tance. A  new  respect  for  human  life  grew  up  amid  the 
almost  incredible  callousness  of  the  Roman  world.  Hope 
and  confidence  took  the  place  of  despair,  or  a  forced  un- 
concern ;  the  goodness  of  God,  and  the  worth  of  the 
human  soul,  must  in  the  end  lead  to  happiness. 

With  the  new  sense  of  active  life  and  moral  agency 
which  this  involved,  the  vague  pantheism  of  past  philoso- 
phies was  no  longer  felt  to  be  satisfactory.  Man's  life 
could  no  longer  be  wholly  absorbed  in  the  divine  life. 
Man  is  a  being  created  in  the  image  of  God,  who  may 
even  oppose  himself  to  God,  as  the  fact  of  sin  shows.  It 
is  in  this  personal  relationship  that  the  very  essence  of 
his  religious  life  consists,  and  must  always  consist.  Per- 
sonal immortality,  which  in  Greek  philosophy  had  either 
been  rejected  outright  or  held  with  much  hesitation,  be- 
comes a  fundamental  article  of  the  Christian  creed.  The 
same  thing,  also,  determines  the  doctrine  of  God.  In 
order  to  render  possible  that  intimate  relationship  which 
is  the  core  of  the  religious  life,  God  also  must  be  conceived, 
not  as  the  abstraction  of  Neo-Platonism,  above  all  definite 
conceptions,  the  conception  of  personality  included,  but  a 
true  self,  whom  men  can  call  Father.  All  things  flow  from 
Him,  not  by  any  fatalistic  law  of  necessity,  but  in  accord- 
ance with  His  intelligent  purpose,  and  by  an  act  of  free 
creation. 

3.  The  process  by  which,  under  the  influence  of  such 
dominant  ideas,  the  fluid  beliefs  of  the  early  Church  were 
gradually  shaped  into  a  highly  complex  dogmatic  system, 
belongs  to  the  history  of  theology ;  it  is  necessary  only  to 
say  a  word  about  the  last  and  greatest  of  the  Fathers  to 
whom  this  shaping  was  due.  Augustine,  Bishop  of  Hippo, 
marks  the  transition  between  the  constructive  period  of 
Christian  thought,  and  the  long  period  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
when  dogma  had  become  fixed,  and  no  freedom  was  allowed 
the  mind  outside  the  narrow  limits  of  an  ecclesiastical  sys- 


The  Religious  Period  193 

tern.  Augustine  is  not  only  one  of  the  great  thinkers  of 
the  world,  but  he  also  has  a  particularly  interesting  per- 
sonality—  a  personality  of  which  we  know  a  great  deal 
through  his  own  Confessions.  He  was  born  in  Africa,  in 
354  A.D.  His  mother  was  a  woman  of  great  strength  of 
character,  and  a  devoted  adherent  of  Catholic  Christianity ; 
and  it  came  to  be  her  one  aim  in  life  to  see  her  son  a  Chris- 
tian also.  For  many  years  this  wish  did  not  seem  likely 
to  be  fulfilled.  Augustine's  youth  in  the  corrupt  city  of 
Carthage  made  him  familiar  with  a  life  of  dissipation ;  and 
the  ambition  which  his  brilliant  intellectual  gifts  justified, 
turned  him  to  secular  pursuits.  He  became  a  rhetorician, 
and  after  leaving  Carthage  practised  for  a  time  in  Rome, 
and  then  in  Milan.  Meanwhile  he  had  discovered  an 
aptitude  for  philosophy,  and  had  made  himself  familiar 
to  a  considerable  extent  with  philosophic  thought.  At  an 
early  age  he  was  attracted  by  the  Manichaeans,  and  their 
solution  of  the  problem  of  evil.  But  from  the  first  he  felt 
the  crudity  of  their  metaphysics,  and  while  it  was  some 
time  before  he  was  ready  definitely  to  reject  their  doc- 
trines, his  further  intellectual  development  carried  him 
continually  away  from  them.  In  Milan  he  came  under  the 
influence  of  Ambrose,  whose  preaching  made  a  profound 
impression  on  him.  Finally,  after  a  violent  struggle  against 
the  complete  self-abnegation  which  seemed  to  him  to  be 
demanded  by  Christianity,  he  passed  through  an  experi- 
ence which  led  him  once  for  all  to  abandon  his  old  life. 
Thereafter,  till  his  death  as  Bishop  of  Hippo  in  430,  he 
devoted  his  time  and  abilities  wholly  to  the  service  of  the 
Church  and  Catholic  Christianity. 

In  Augustine  we  find  two  strains  of  thought  opposing 
each  other.  Asa  philosopher  —  and  he  was  a  philosopher 
before  he  was  a  theologian  —  he  anticipates  in  a  remark- 
able way  the  standpoint  of  modern  thought.  The  modern 
movement,  beginning  with  Descartes,  which  turns  away 
from  objective  knowledge  as  a  starting-point,  and  comes 
back  to  the  self  as  the  clew  to  the  interpretation  of  reality, 


194        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

finds  its  counterpart,  often  very  exact,  in  Augustine's  writ- 
ings. Augustine  even  goes  beyond  Descartes  by  the  empha- 
sis which  he  places  on  the  nature  of  the  self  as  an  active  will, 
in  opposition  to  the  intellectualism  which  had  characterized 
ancient  philosophy.  The  freedom  of  the  will,  accordingly, 
assumes  a  prominent  place  in  his  earlier  thought. 

But  in  this  purely  philosophical  tendency,  Augustine 
was  too  far  in  advance  of  his  age  to  have  any  immediate 
effect.  What  the  peculiar  needs  of  the  time  demanded  was 
something  quite  different.  It  was,  therefore,  the  second 
tendency  in  Augustine  which  became  the  dominant  and  im- 
portant one,  both  in  its  influence  on  the  Church,  and  in  his 
own  development.  For  the  present,  the  need  was  for  author- 
ity, and  this  authority  the  Church  alone  was  in  a  position 
to  exercise.  The  Roman  mind  was  by  nature  of  the  legal 
type.  It  tended  to  think  of  God,  not  as  working  in  a  world 
akin  to  him,  by  coming  home  to  the  lives  and  consciences 
of  men;  but  as  a  judge  and  lawgiver,  promulgating  a  defi- 
nite constitution  and  definite  enactments,  and  holding  men 
rigidly  to  obedience  under  pain  of  punishment. 

Such  a  forensic  conception  made  necessary  a  definite 
mediator  between  God  and  man  —  an  institution  which 
should  act  as  conservator  of  God's  interests  on  earth.  And 
this  need  for  a  Church  possessing  a  clearly  defined  body 
of  doctrine,  guaranteed  by  an  external  authority,  grew  all 
the  time  greater,  the  more  the  weakness  of  the  Empire 
became  apparent,  and  the  danger  from  the  inroads  of  bar- 
barians increased.  This  alone  could  preserve  men  from 
intellectual  anarchy  during  a  period  which  neither  produced 
the  ability,  nor  offered  the  external  opportunity,  for  an 
attainment  of  truth  by  the  individual ;  this  alone  could  pre- 
sent the  objective  organization  and  prestige  to  stand  up 
against  the  social  anarchy  which  was  impending.  Both  of 
these  things  appealed  powerfully  to  Augustine  himself. 
He  also  had  experienced  the  impotency  of  reason,  and  had 
passed  from  one  stage  of  thought  to  another,  until  he  had 
reached  at  one  time  a  more  or  less  complete  Academic 


The  Religious  Period  195 

scepticism.  The  ideal  of  a  Church  which  offered  an 
infallible  system  of  doctrine,  based  upon  authority,  and 
satisfying  his  religious  needs,  attracted  him,  as  it  has  many 
others  since.  On  the  other  hand,  the  outer  splendor  and 
impressiveness  of  the  Milan  Church  also  affected  a  mind 
by  nature  ambitious  and  eager  for  a  career.  Accordingly, 
when,  as  Bishop  of  Hippo,  he  himself  had  reached  a  posi- 
tion of  authority,  we  find  Augustine  the  philosopher  be- 
come Augustine  the  theologian,  and  devoting  all  the 
powers  of  his  mind  to  the  support  of  the  Church  whose 
authority  he  was  to  help  establish  securely  for  future  ages. 
This  new  standpoint  involved  more  or  less  collision  with 
the  old.  If  the  Church  is  to  be  the  absolute  mediator 
between  God  and  man,  the  emphasis  can  no  longer  rest 
on  the  subjective  side,  or  on  the  idea  of  man  as  a  free  will. 
If  God  reveals  himself  directly  in  the  consciousness  of  the 
individual,  who  has  the  power  freely  to  assent  to  the  reve- 
lation or  reject  it,  the  importance  of  the  Church  as  an  organ- 
ization is  entirely  secondary.  The  doctrine  that  there  is 
salvation  only  within  the  limits  of  the  Church  is  a  necessity, 
if  its  authority  is  to  be  maintained.  Augustine  is  not  ready 
to  deny  outright  the  principle  of  free  will,  but  he  limits  its 
application  in  such  a  way  as  practically  to  transform  it 
into  determinism.  The  first  man  Adam  was,  indeed,  free ; 
he  had  the  power  to  choose  what  course  he  pleased.  But 
having  thus  saved  his  general  principle,  Augustine  can  go 
on  to  deny  freedom  elsewhere.  By  his  apostasy  from  God, 
Adam  corrupted  human  nature,  and  the  race  lost  its  power  of 
free  action.  Henceforth  man  is  predetermined  to  sin,  and 
cannot  possibly  escape  from  its  power,  save  by  the  super- 
natural aid  of  God's  grace.  This  grace  comes  only  through 
the  Church,  by  the  rite  of  baptism.  Accordingly  the  Church 
has  the  key  to  salvation,  and  none  outside  its  organization 
can  hope  to  escape  the  condemnation  deserved  by  their  guilt. 
But  if  freedom  is  denied  to  man,  it  is  asserted  all  the  more 
strongly  of  God,  in  the  doctrine  of  election.  God  chooses 
to  save  certain  men  and  damn  others,  solely  because  He 


196        A  Students  History  of  Philosophy 

wills  to  do  so,  without  reference  to   any   merit  on   their 
part. 

In  the  City  of  God,  Augustine  formulates  his  view  of 
the  Church  in  the  most  elaborate  philosophy  of  history 
that  had  ever  been  attempted.  All  history  is  regarded 
as  a  conflict  between  the  earthly  city,  which  belongs  to  the 
children  of  the  world,  and  the  City  of  God,  the  Church  — 
a  drama  to  end  in  the  final  victory  and  felicity  of  the 
saints.  Already  Rome  had  been  sacked  by  the  Goths,  and 
its  glory  was  nearing  a  close.  The  prophetic  vision  of  a 
triumphant  theocracy  filled  Augustine's  mind,  and  like 
many  another  prophecy,  it  helped  to  bring  about  its  own 
fulfilment.  It  is  the  Church  which  is  to  be  the  dominant 
factor  in  the  next  period  of  human  history. 


LITERATURE 

Donaldson,  Critical  History  of  Christian  Literature  and  Doctrine. 

Bigg,  Christian  Platonists  of  Alexandria. 

Allen,  Continuity  of  Christian  Thought, 

Mansel,  Gnostic  Heresies. 

Augustine,  Confessions,  City  of  God. 

Harnack,  History  of  Dogma. 

Hatch,  Hibbert  Lectures. 

Fisher,  History  of  Christian  Doctrin*. 


II.  THE  MIDDLE  AGES  AND  THE  TRAN- 
SITION   TO    MODERN    PHILOSOPHY 

THE  MIDDLE  AGES 
§  21.    Introduction 

NOT  long  after  Augustine's  death,  the  Roman  Empire 
fell,  and  we  enter  upon  a  new  era  in  the  history  of  the 
world  and  of  thought.  What  is  the  general  character  and 
significance  of  this  period  ? 

1.  The  Greek  Element.  —  Our  modern  thought  is  a  com- 
pound into  which  three  main  elements  enter.     The  frame- 
work of  our  thought,  the  concepts  and  ideas  which  we  use, 
come  to  us  largely  from  the  Greeks.     It  was  the  business 
of  the  long  development  of  Greek  speculation  to  frame 
these  conceptions,  on  the  basis  of  which  every  future  phi- 
losophy was  to  build.     But  philosophy  is  not  simply  an 
exercise  of  intellectual  comprehension.     It  grows  out  of 
the  needs  of  human  life,  and  can  only  get  its  final  justifi- 
cation as  it  succeeds  in  organizing  this,  and  making  it 
effective.     And   here  the  Greeks   may  be  said   to  have 
failed.     All  the  Greek  philosophizing  could  not  prevent 
the  break-up  of  Greek  social  and  political  life ;   indeed, 
philosophy  was  one  of  the  elements  which  hastened  this 
dissolution.     And  the  Greeks  had  not  the  necessary  poli- 
tical genius  to  enable  them  to  work  out  a  practical  substi- 
tute for  the  forms  which  were  proving  inadequate. 

2.  The  Roman  Element. — This  lack  was  supplied  by 
the  Roman.     However  he  might  be  wanting  in  intellectual 
subtilty,  the  Roman  was  preeminently  fitted  to  impress 
upon  the  world  the  value  and  the  reality  of  government 
and  law.     The  principle  of  authority  ran  through  his  life 

197 


198        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

—  the  authority  of  husband  over  wife,  of  father  over  son, 
of  master  over  slave,  of  state  over  citizen.  And  while  the 
outcome  was  often  harsh  and  forbidding  in  appearance, 
yet  the  rule  of  blood  and  iron  was  the  only  means  of 
reducing  the  world  to  at  least  a  measure  of  order. 

The  result  of  this  genius  for  organization  passed  over  to 
later  times,  even  after  the  Empire  itself  had  fallen.  To  the 
Roman  is  largely  due  that  external  framework  of  society  and 
government,  without  which  the  spiritual  side  of  civilization 
would  be  impossible.  The  most  important  form  in  which 
this  inheritance  was  transmitted,  was  that  combination  of 
Roman  practical  efficiency  with  Greek  philosophy,  which 
resulted  in  Roman  law.  The  Stoics,  it  will  be  remembered, 
had  reached  the  conception  of  a  law  of  nature,  binding  upon 
all  men  alike ;  and  of  a  consequent  cosmopolitanism,  which 
recognized  the  essential  equality  of  all  men  as  expressions  of 
the  universal  reason  working  throughout  the  universe.  This 
conception  had  important  results  by  being  brought  into  con- 
tact with  practical  legislation.  As  the  power  of  Rome  gradu- 
ally extended,  there  grew  up,  alongside  the  civil  law,  the 
so-called  jus  gentium,  which  governed  her  relation  to  those 
who  were  not  citizens.  It  was  the  policy  of  Rome  to  bring 
all  her  subjects  under  a  common  law,  but  at  the  same  time 
to  make  this  broad  and  tolerant  in  its  provisions,  and  to  leave 
local  customs  as  much  as  possible  unchanged.  The  jus 
gentium,  accordingly,  was  made  up  largely  of  those  ele- 
ments common  to  the  laws  of  different  countries,  which 
were  sifted  out  in  the  interests  of  simplicity  and  uniformity. 

In  this  way  there  arose,  alongside  the  ordinary  Roman 
procedure,  the  idea  of  a  more  common  and  universal  law; 
and  under  the  influence  of  Stoic  thought,  this  came  to 
assume  a  position  of  special  importance.  As  opposed  to  the 
particular,  and  more  or  less  conventional  enactments  due 
to  local  or  temporary  conditions,  it  came  to  be  regarded 
as  the  law  of  nature,  universal,  binding  upon  all  by  the 
original  constitution  of  man's  being,  and  recognized  by 
him  intuitively  as  such.  This  conception  had  a  very  con- 


The  Middle  Ages  199 

siderable  influence  in  rendering  possible  a  more  rational 
and  scientific  treatment  of  legislation.  In  particular,  it 
gave  the  theoretical  basis  for  that  codification  of  the  laws 
of  the  Empire,  represented  in  the  Justinian  and  in  other 
codes,  which  still  remains  the  legal  groundwork  of  our 
modern  life. 

3.  The  Christian  Element. — The  work  of  the  Romans 
was  thus  the  work  of  embodying  in  actual  institutions 
the  ideas  which,  for  the  Greek  philosophers,  had  been 
mere  theory.  While,  however,  by  their  political  genius 
they  performed  a  service  of  the  greatest  value  for  civ- 
ilization, in  the  system  of  law  and  government  by  which 
they  welded  society  together,  in  one  essential  element 
they  were  lacking.  Roman  civilization  tended  too  much 
to  overbear  and  suppress  the  individual,  and  so  to  fur- 
nish no  motive  power  for  growth  and  progress.  It  was 
necessary  to  have  not  only  the  external  forms  of  society, 
but  a  sense  of  the  value  of  human  endeavor  which  should 
make  these  forms  living  and  significant.  Man  must  be 
revealed  to  himself  at  his  true  worth,  and  be  given  an 
inspiration  which  should  set  him  to  work.  This  needed 
emphasis  on  the  subjective  side,  on  the  development  of  the 
personal  life  of  the  man  himself  in  its  completeness,  as 
the  only  security  for  the  stability  and  growth  of  the  social 
whole,  Christianity  came  in  to  supply.  By  its  appeal  to 
the  feelings,  it  set  free  the  latent  forces  of  man's  nature ; 
and  by  directing  these  in  the  channels  of  a  life  which  at 
once  looked  toward  God,  and  expressed  itself  in  love  and  ser- 
vice to  man,  it  created  a  wholly  new  sense  of  the  value  of 
the  individual.  It  did  not  isolate  and  narrow  man's  life 
as  if  it  were  something  complete  in  itself,  but  related  it  to 
the  life  of  all  men,  through  their  common  relation  to  God. 

It  is  true  that  this  ideal  of  Christianity  was  more  or  less 
unstable.  It  depended  too  much  upon  an  appeal  to  the 
emotions,  which  necessarily  lost  something  of  their  force 
as  time  went  on.  There  was  lacking  the  definite  intellec- 
tual grasp,  and  the  concrete  institutional  forms,  to  direct 


2OO        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

the  emotional  life,  and  give  consistency  and  permanency 
to  its  workings.  Consequently  Christianity  needed  sup- 
plementing by  the  contributions  which  Greece  and  Rome 
had  to  offer.  It  took  many  centuries  for  this  union  to 
become  a  vital  one,  and  often  in  the  meantime  the  charac- 
teristic spirit  of  Christianity  seemed  on  the  point  of  dying 
out.  But  its  influence  never  was  completely  lost  in  the 
darkest  ages,  and  under  more  favorable  conditions  it  was 
destined  to  contribute  to  modern  life  and  thought  some 
of  their  most  essential  features. 

4.  The  German  Element.  —  There  is  still  a  fourth 
element  which  enters  into  modern  life  —  the  Teutonic. 
The  contribution  which  it  makes,  however,  is  not  so 
much  any  new  idea,  as  the  human  material  in  which 
the  Roman,  Greek,  and  Christian  contributions  were  to 
be  brought  together  and  realized.  The  problem  of  the 
future  was  to  create  a  new  ideal  of  human  life.  This 
ideal  should  take  its  stand,  indeed,  upon  law  and  social 
institutions;  but  instead  of  accepting  these  on  authority, 
it  should  base  them  upon,  and  let  them  grow  out  of, 
the  essential  nature  of  man  himself,  and  so  combine 
stability  with  the  possibility  of  growth.  It  should  be  free 
to  understand  the  world  ;  but  instead  of  making  this  under- 
standing an  end  in  itself,  it  should  relate  it  to  the  needs  of 
man's  physical  and  spiritual  life.  It  should  get  the  pur- 
chase of  an  appeal  to  the  feelings,  and  through  them  to 
the  will;  but  it  should  not  allow  the  feelings  to  lead  us 
blindly,  apart  from  definite  intellectual  guidance,  and 
definitely  organized  forms  of  social  activity.  Conceivably, 
the  Roman  world  might  have  had  within  it  the  power  to 
make  a  fresh  start,  and  assume  this  new  task.  But  his- 
torically this  is  not  what  happened.  The  German  hordes 
which  were  always  pressing  the  Empire  from  the  north, 
had  been  held  in  check  for  a  long  time,  but  they  became 
more  and  more  threatening  the  more  the  vigor  of  the 
restraining  forces  was  impaired.  At  last  the  exhaustion 
of  the  Empire  became  too  great  to  hold  them  back  any 


The  Middle  Ages  201 

longer.  In  successive  waves  they  overran  the  provinces, 
and  Italy  itself.  Rome  was  captured,  and  the  conquerors 
set  up  kingdoms  of  their  own.  If  civilization  was  to  be 
carried  on  at  all,  it  could  only  be  by  the  assimilation  of 
this  new  material. 

Hopeless  as  the  task  appeared,  in  reality  the  Teutons, 
though  barbarians,  had  in  them  the  possibilities  of  a  higher 
development  than  any  that  had  preceded.  Their  most 
striking  characteristic  was  a  pronounced  sense  of  individ- 
uality and  love  of  freedom ;  but  along  with  this  there  went 
a  simplicity  of  character  and  ruggedness  of  moral  nature, 
and  a  cleanness  of  life,  which  furnished  admirable  soil  for 
Christianity.  Before,  however,  the  Teutons  could  realize 
their  destiny,  a  long  period  of  training  was  required.  A 
new  individualism  must  arise  out  of  the  absolutism  of  the 
Roman  Empire ;  but  a  freedom  on  the  basis  of  their  present 
attainments  would  at  once  have  degenerated  into  chaos. 
It  was  the  great  work  of  the  Middle  Ages  and  of  the  Church 
to  take  this  raw  material,  and  mould  it  into  a  definite 
shape ;  to  impress  upon  it,  by  external  authority,  the  ideas 
and  institutional  forms  which  could  be  rescued  from  the 
wreck  of  the  ancient  world.  It  was  only  when,  after  cen- 
turies of  training,  these  checks  and  guiding  principles  had 
been  worked  into  men's  natures,  so  as  to  form  an  integral 
part  of  themselves,  that  they  could  safely  begin  to  find 
their  way  to  freedom  again.  The  time  came  once  more 
when  a  criticism  of  beliefs  and  institutions  was  possible 
and  necessary ;  that  it  did  not  result,  as  it  had  in  the  case 
of  Greece,  in  the  overthrow  of  society,  was  due,  partly  to 
a  difference  in  racial  characteristics,  but  also  to  the 
thoroughness  with  which  the  Middle  Ages  had  done  their 
work  of  education.  The  result  was  not  a  violent  break 
from  the  past,  but  a  gradual  transformation,  on  the  founda- 
tion of  the  essential  truth  in  the  old,  which  still  persisted 
and  guided  the  process  of  emancipation. 

Briefly,  then,  we  may  say  that  as  it'was  the  peculiar  task  of 
the  Middle  Ages  to  effect  by  external  authority  the  training 


2O2        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

of  barbarian  Europe,  so  their  philosophical  interest  lies  in 
the  gradual  appearance  of  those  principles  of  freedom  of 
thought  and  action  which,  in  opposition  to  the  principle 
of  authority,  were  to  characterize  modern  times.  From 
this  standpoint  we  may  turn  to  a  short  account  of  the  main 
features  of  mediaeval  philosophy. 

§22.   The  First  Period.    Scotus  Erigena.    Anselm.   Abelard 

I .  The  Church  and  the  Barbarians.  —  When  Rome  fell, 
the  only  institution  which  could  stand  effectively  for  law 
and  order  was  the  Church.  Since  this  was  divorced  largely 
from  political  life,  it  would  arouse  no  special  antagonism 
on  the  part  of  the  victors,  while  its  sanctity  and  external 
magnificence  would  stir  feelings  of  awe  in  the  minds  of 
barbarians  accustomed  only  to  the  rudest  life.  When  the 
Goths  sacked  Rome,  they  still  respected  the  Church,  and 
offered  it  the  privilege  of  asylum ;  and  during  the  period 
which  followed,  it  was  the  Church  which  stood  as  a  defence 
against  anarchy.  Stretching  as  it  did  throughout  the 
Empire,  with  a  strong  internal  organization,  it  at  once  set 
about  the  task  of  conquering  the  victors.  And  in  a  sur- 
prisingly short  time  it  accomplished  the  task.  The  Ger- 
mans, separated  from  the  local  associations  of  their  own 
religion,  showed  a  readiness  to  accept  the  cult  of  a  higher 
civilization  which  displayed  so  much  to  impress  the  senses,, 
and  such  skill  to  adapt  itself  to  the  natures  with  which  it 
was  dealing.  The  Church  begins,  accordingly,  the  victori- 
ous career  which  was  to  make  it,  not  simply  the  arbiter  of 
the  intellectual  beliefs  of  the  world,  but,  as  a  vast  hierarchy 
centring  in  the  Pope  at  Rome,  a  great,  and  at  times  the 
ultimate  exponent  of  civil  authority  also,  able  to  enforce 
its  commands  upon  kings  and  emperors. 

Meanwhile  the  intellectual  life  of  antiquity  seemed  on 
the  point  of  being  entirely  eclipsed.  In  the  centuries  fol- 
lowing the  fall  of  the  Empire,  the  literature  and  the  culture 
of  Greece  and  Rome  became  almost  as  if  they  never  had 


The  Middle  Ages  203 

been.  Outside  the  Church  there  was  no  leisure  for  such 
things,  and  inside  the  Church  no  inclination.  All  true 
wisdom  was  given  in  the  Church  creed  —  all  that  was  nec- 
essary to  salvation.  Heathen  learning  and  philosophy 
were  useless,  as  heathen  art  was  vicious,  and  if  they  were 
not  regarded  as  positively  un-Christian,  and  deserving  to 
be  rooted  up  and  destroyed,  they  were  at  least  a  matter  of 
indifference.  "A  report  has  reached  us,"  writes  Gregory 
the  Great  to  the  Bishop  of  Vienne,  "which  we  cannot 
mention  without  a  blush,  that  thou  expoundest  grammar  to 
thy  friends.  Whereat  we  are  so  offended  and  filled  with 
scorn  that  our  former  opinion  of  thee  is  turned  to  mourning. 
The  same  mouth  singeth  not  the  praises  of  Jove  and  the 
praises  of  Christ."  Some  slight  respect  for  intellectual  cul- 
ture still  persisted  in  the  monasteries,  but  it  was  elementary, 
and  chiefly  ecclesiastical  in  type.  Previous  philosophy 
survived  for  the  most  part  only  as  it  filtered  through  the 
writings  of  the  Fathers,  who  ordinarily  were  hostile  to  it. 
Of  the  works  of  Plato  and  Aristotle  only  the  merest  frac- 
tion was  known,  and  this  through  translation  and  com- 
mentary. It  was  not  till  the  twelfth  century  that  the  great 
Greek  philosophers  began  to  be  accessible  at  first  hand. 

2.  Scholasticism.  —  When,  accordingly,  about  900  A.D., 
a  somewhat  greater  activity  shows  itself  in  the  life  of 
thought,  these  new  intellectual  interests  which  form  the 
beginning  of  what  is  known  as  the  scholastic  or  school 
philosophy  —  the  philosophy  of  the  Catholic  Church  — 
take  a  particular  direction.  Scholasticism  has  two  main 
characteristics.  It  is,  ia  the  first  place,  a  philosophy  of 
dogmatic  religion,  assuming  a  certain  subject-matter  as 
absolute  and  unquestioned.  The  Church  could  not  con- 
sistently allow  the  search  for  truth,  since  she  herself 
already  possessed  the  truth  by  an  infallible  revelation  ; 
the  limits  within  which  thought  could  move  were  neces- 
sarily strictly  defined.  There  was  no  neutral  field  of 
secular  knowledge ;  in  all  spheres  alike,  history  and 
science  as  well  as  matters  of  religion  in  the  stricter  sense, 


204        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

the  Church  conceived  herself  to  be  possessed  already  of 
final  truth.  But  meanwhile  a  certain  work  was  left  for 
the  intellect  which  was  not  obviously  dangerous.  This 
was  the  work  of  showing  how  the  doctrinal  content,  whose 
truth  was  taken  for  granted  on  authority,  was  also  self- 
consistent  and  rational.  Granting  that  the  dogma  was 
given  as  an  established  fact,  it  yet  might  seem  a  pious 
task  to  show  that  these  doctrines,  when  given,  are  accept- 
able to  the  reason,  and  capable  of  being  justified  to  it. 
There  was  indeed  danger  in  this,  as  the  Church  was  later 
on  to  discover  —  the  danger  that  the  rational  justification 
should  become  a  requirement,  and  the  dogma  be  measured 
by  its  standard,  and  derive  authority  from  it.  But  mean- 
while to  oppose  the  tendency  would  have  been  to  oppose 
all  intellectual  life  whatever,  and  this  not  even  the  Church 
would  have  been  powerful  enough  to  do  successfully. 

The  most  prominent  characteristic  of  Scholasticism,  then, 
was  its  function  as  a  systematizer  and  rationalizer  of  re- 
ligious dogma.  But  in  connection  with  this  there  was  an 
important  circumstance  which  also  largely  determined  its 
peculiar  character.  This  was  the  extraordinary  barrenness 
and  abstractness  of  the  material  with  which  it  had  to  work. 
The  very  considerable  sum  of  concrete  knowledge  about 
the  world  which  antiquity  had  collected  —  knowledge  of 
history  and  of  the  natural  sciences  —  had  dropped  out  of 
existence  for  the  Middle  Ages  as  useless,  or  worse  than 
useless.  Instead  of  being  able,  therefore,  to  utilize  in 
their  thinking  the  fruits  of  a  rich  experience  and  knowl- 
edge, the  attitude  which  the  Schoolmen  were  compelled 
to  assume  was  almost  wholly  an  abstractly  logical  attitude. 
All  they  could  do  was  to  spin  out  fine  distinctions  and 
implications  from  the  most  general  statements  about  the 
world  —  statements  in  large  measure  empty  of  the  real  con- 
tent that  gives  them  meaning.  And  while  to  this  task  they 
often  brought  a  surprising  ability  and  acuteness,  the  lack 
of  a  worthy  subject-matter  vitiated  all  their  efforts,  and 
gave  their  speculations  that  air  of  unreality  and  triviality 


The  Middle  Ages  205 

which  strikes  the  modern  mind  so  forcibly.  "  Surely," 
says  Bacon,  "  like  as  many  substances  in  nature  which  are 
solid  do  putrify  and  corrupt  into  worms,  so  it  is  the  prop- 
erty of  good  and  sound  knowledge  to  putrify  and  dissolve 
into  a  number  of  subtile,  idle,  unwholesome,  and  as  I  may 
term  them,  vermiculate  questions,  which  have  indeed  a  kind 
of  quickness  and  life  of  spirit,  but  no  soundness  of  matter 
or  goodness  of  quality.  This  kind  of  degenerate  learning 
did  chiefly  reign  among  the  schoolmen,  who,  having  sharp 
and  strong  wits,  and  abundance  of  leisure,  and  small 
variety  of  reading,  but  their  wits  being  shut  up  in  the  cells 
of  a  few  authors,  chiefly  Aristotle  their  dictator,  as  their 
persons  were  shut  up  in  the  cells  of  monasteries  and  col- 
leges ;  and  knowing  little  history,  either  of  nature  or  time, 
did  out  of  no  great  quantity  of  matter,  and  infinite  agita- 
tion of  wit,  spin  out  unto  us  those  laborious  webs  of  learn- 
ing which  are  extant  in  their  books.  For  the  wit  and 
mind  of  man,  if  it  work  upon  matter,  which  is  the  contem- 
plation of  the  creatures  of  God,  worketh  according  to  the 
stuff  and  is  limited  thereby ;  but  if  it  work  upon  itself,  as 
the  spider  worketh  its  web,  then  it  is  endless,  and  brings 
forth  indeed  cobwebs  of  learning,  admirable  for  the  fine- 
ness of  thread  and  work,  but  of  no  substance  or  profit." 

3.  Erigena.  Realism  and  Nominalism,  —  The  first 
period  of  the  scholastic  philosophy  may  be  taken  as 
extending  to  about  the  twelfth  century,  and  it  is  marked 
in  the  beginning  by  a  comparative  degree  of  specula- 
tive freedom.  After  the  long  night  of  the  intellect,  men 
rediscovered  the  delights  of  reason  with  a  feverish  joy. 
The  most  trivial  logical  questions  had  the  power  of  rous- 
ing an  unbounded  enthusiasm.  And  the  naive  confidence 
in  the  accordance  of  reason  with  dogma  —  a  confidence 
which  could  not  be  shaken  until  experience  had  shown 
something  of  where  reason  was  to  lead  —  made  possible  a 
less  guarded  attitude  than  afterward  could  be  allowed.  It 
is  true  that  in  the  case  of  the  first  great  philosopher  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  John  Scotus  Erigena  (about  810-880),  the 


206        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

Church  was  already  inclined  to  be  on  its  guard.  Neverthe- 
less, we  find  in  not  a  few  instances  a  frankness  and  bold- 
ness in  the  expression  of  entirely  rationalistic  opinions, 
which  indicates  the  absence  of  anything  like  the  effective 
censorship  and  control  of  a  later  period. 

In  general,  the  determining  influence  upon  this  period 
of  philosophy  was  Plato.  It  was  Plato,  however,  not  at 
first  hand,  but  through  the  medium  of  Neo-Platonism. 
Erigena  was  a  native  of  Ireland,  a  country  in  which  the 
best  learning  of  the  day  had  taken  refuge  ;  his  scholarship 
was  varied  and  profound  for  his  time,  and  he  possessed 
the  very  unusual  accomplishment  of  a  knowledge  of  Greek. 
He  was,  therefore,  fitted  to  bring  about  that  first  infusion 
of  ancient  thought,  which  was  to  be  repeated  on  a  larger 
scale  at  each  new  step  of  advance,  down  to  the  times  of 
the  Renaissance.  It  was  his  revival  of  the  abstract  and 
transcendental  standpoint  of  Neo-Platonism,  with  its  graded 
hierarchy  of  existence,  which  was  largely  influential  in 
shaping  the  course  of  the  great  philosophical  problem  of 
the  Middle  Ages,  as  opposed  to  the  more  purely  theologi- 
cal problems  dealing  with  the  interpretation  of  dogma. 
This  is  the  question  as  to  the  reality  of  universals,  or 
abstract  notions  —  a  question  which  goes  back  to  Plato  him- 
self. It  divided  the  thinkers  of  the  Middle  Ages  into 
three  great  schools  —  the  Realists,  the  Nominalists,  and 
those  who  tried  to  mediate  between  the  two.  The  Real- 
ists, who  are  represented  by  Erigena,  take  their  stand 
with  Plato,  and  declare  that  class  terms  are  real  —  more 
real  than  the  individual  things  which  come  under  them. 
The  more  general  a  term  is,  the  more  reality  it  possesses ; 
man  is  more  real  than  particular  men,  the  circle  than 
particular  circles.  The  Nominalists,  on  the  other  hand, 
taking  up  the  cause  of  common  sense,  denied  that  the  con- 
cept, or  class,  has  an  existence  of  its  own  beyond  the 
individuals  which  make  up  the  class ;  these  individuals 
alone  are  real.  For  the  extreme  Nominalists,  of  whom 
Roscellinus  is  one  of  the  earliest,  the  concept  is  absolutely 


The  Middle  Ages  207 

nothing  but  a  name,  which  can  be  applied  to  a  number  of 
particular  things. 

In  ringing  the  changes  upon  this  problem,  a  great  share 
of  the  philosophical  energies  of  the  Middle  Ages  is  ex- 
pended. So  far  as  the  net  result  is  concerned,  it  is  for 
us  not  very  large.  The  problem  had  been  treated  by  the 
Greek  philosophers  with  far  more  concrete  knowledge  and 
genuine  insight.  The  Scholastics  added  some  logical  de- 
tail, and  an  elaborate  philosophical  terminology  which  has 
not  proved  altogether  a  blessing ;  but  as  for  bringing  out 
the  real  truth  of  Plato's  doctrine,  and  freeing  it  from  its 
inadequate  expression,  neither  Realist  nor  Nominalist  had 
the  necessary  insight.  There  is  a  significance,  however, 
which  the  controversy  possesses,  apart  from  the  question 
of  metaphysics  that  is  directly  involved.  It  represents  one 
aspect  of  the  fundamental  struggle  between  the  dominant 
modes  of  thought  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  the  begin- 
nings of  the  modern  scientific  and  individualistic  spirit 
which  was  destined  to  overthrow  the  power  of  the  Church 
and  create  a  new  civilization. 

It  was  natural  that  the  Church  should  be  realistic. 
The  hierarchical  system  of  reality,  which  absorbed  the 
part  in  the  whole,  the  less  general  in  the  more  general, 
was  a  counterpart,  in  the  intellectual  world,  of  the  graded 
hierarchy  of  the  Roman  ecclesiastical  system,  at  the  top 
of  which  the  Pope  stood  supreme,  as  the  representative  of 
the  Church  universal.  To  admit  that  the  individual  alone 
is  real,  and  not  the  class,  would  have  been  to  deny  that 
solidarity  of  the  human  race,  on  which  the  whole  Church 
doctrine  of  sin  and  redemption  was  based.  It  would  have 
been  to  admit  that  particular  persons  and  particular 
churches  have  reality,  while  the  one  Holy  Catholic  Church 
is  a  mere  name ;  and  so  that  the  mediation  of  the  Church 
is  unnecessary  in  religion. 

Again,  if  Nominalism  were  true,  and  particular  things 
alone  were  real,  then  consistently  men's  attention  ought  to 
be  directed  to  such  things,  and  secular  and  scientific  interests 


2o8        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

must  take  the  place  of  religious  and  ecclesiastical.  Nomi- 
nalism was  the  natural  ally  of  the  scientific  spirit,  even  if 
this  was  not  consciously  present  in  the  minds  of  the  earlier 
Nominalists ;  and  science  is  incompatible  with  an  exclusive 
and  overwhelming  interest  in  personal  salvation  such  as  the 
Church  endeavored  to  foster,  and  on  the  existence  of  which 
its  authority  rested.  When  it  was  worked  out,  moreover, 
Nominalism  was  bound  to  conflict  with  the  whole  principle 
of  dogmatism.  A  dogma  is  a  past  generalization  which  is 
divorced  from  the  correcting  influence  of  new  facts,  and 
taken  as  necessarily  and  absolutely  true  in  itself.  With 
such  traditional  generalizations  the  Church  was  identified ; 
it  stood  for  authority  rather  than  investigation  —  the 
authority  of  some  one  else's  experience  in  the  past.  To 
concentrate  attention  on  the  particular  facts  out  of  which 
generalizations  grow,  and  to  maintain  the  superior  validity 
of  these  facts,  was  to  substitute  the  principle  of  private 
judgment. 

In  its  earlier  history,  Nominalism  was  not  aware  of  all  its 
implications.  In  taking  its  stand  upon  the  common-sense 
denial  thatclass  terms  have  an  objective  existence  apart  from 
things,  it  supposed  itself  to  be  entirely  orthodox.  And, 
indeed,  it  was  able  to  retort  the  cry  of  heresy  against  its  rivals. 
Without  doubt  the  logical  tendency  of  Realism  was  in  the 
direction  of  Pantheism.  If  individuals  exist  only  in  the  class, 
and  not  by  themselves,  then  the  highest  concept,  or  God,  is 
the  sole  reality,  in  whom  alone  all  lesser  facts  —  the  world 
and  man  —  have  being.  "  God  is  everything  that  truly  is," 
says  Erigena ;  and  again,  "  This  is  the  end  of  all  things 
visible  and  invisible,  when  all  visible  things  pass  into 
intellectual,  and  the  intellectual  into  God,  by  a  marvellous 
and  unspeakable  union."  It  is  true  that  he  adds,  "  yet 
not  by  any  confusion  or  distinction  of  essences  or  sub- 
stances;" but  it  is  a  question  how  far  he  really  can 
maintain  this.  In  spite  of  the  danger,  however,  the 
Church  remained  realistic.  The  great  need  of  the  world 
was  still  for  a  unifying  and  ordering  force  in  opposition  to 


The  Middle  Ages  209 

the  disintegrating  tendencies  which  were  present  in  Feudal- 
ism. Realism  alone  supplied  a  theoretical  basis  for  this, 
and  Nominalism  had,  accordingly,  to  wait  for  a  more  favor- 
able opportunity. 

4.  Anselm.  —  The  typical  exponent  of  Realism  in  the 
first  period  of  the  Middle  Ages  is  Anselm.  Born  in  Aosta 
in  1033,  he  was  attracted  to  the  famous  monastery  of  Bee, 
in  Normandy,  by  the  name  of  Lanfranc,  whom  he  after- 
ward succeeded  as  Abbot.  Later  he  was  again  made  Lan- 
franc's  successor,  as  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  under 
William  the  Red  ;  and  in  this  office,  after  a  career  marked 
by  numerous  vicissitudes  which  his  conscientiousness  and 
uprightness  occasioned,  he  died  in  1109.  Anselm  com- 
bines in  a  remarkable  way  a  genuine  piety,  and  an  un- 
flinching acceptance  of  the  orthodox  creed,  with  a  strong 
speculative  bent,  and  a  confidence  that  reason  and  reve- 
lation will  lead  to  the  same  goal.  With  Anselm,  there 
is  no  question  of  doubting  the  doctrines  of  the  Church. 
Faith  must  always  precede  knowledge.  We  do  not  re- 
flect in  order  that  we  may  believe ;  we  believe  in  order 
that  we  may  know.  The  unbeliever,  who  does  not  first 
perceive  the  truth  by  faith,  can  no  more  arrive  at  an 
understanding  of  the  truth,  than  the  blind  man  who  does 
not  see  the  light  can  understand  the  light.  Our  duty, 
therefore,  is  to  accept  the  teachings  of  the  Church  in  all 
sincerity  and  humility,  and  strive  to  comprehend  them.  If 
we  succeed,  we  may  thank  God  ;  if  we  do  not,  let  us  simply 
end  our  search,  and  submit  to  God's  will,  instead  of  deny- 
ing the  dogma,  and  allowing  our  reason  to  stray  outside 
the  limits  which  it  sets. 

Anselm  himself,  however,  is  strongly  convinced  that 
the  attempt  will  be  successful.  In  the  endeavor  to  make 
the  objects  of  faith  intelligible  to  reason,  he  examines 
acutely  the  fundamental  doctrines  of  the  Church,  particu- 
larly the  doctrines  of  the  Trinity  and  the  Atonement,  in  a 
way  that  deeply  influenced  subsequent  theology.  On  the 
more  distinctly  philosophical  side,  his  most  lasting  work 


2io        A  Students  History  of  Philosophy 

was  in  connection  with  the  proof  of  the  existence  of  God. 
He  threw  himself  into  this  problem  with  an  intensity  of 
earnestness  which  often  made  him  go  without  food  and 
sleep.  The  most  characteristic  result  of  his  meditations 
was  the  famous  ontological  argument  —  an  argument  which 
has  appealed  to  some  of  the  greatest  thinkers  since  An- 
selm's  day,  and  which  still  retains  an  influence  and  a  fas- 
cination. The  argument  is  substantially  as  follows  :  We 
define  God  as  a  being  than  which  nothing  greater  can  be 
thought.  Now  there  is  in  the  mind  the  idea  of  such  a  be- 
ing. But  also  such  a  being  must  exist  outside  the  mind. 
For  if  it  did  not,  it  would  fail  to  be  a  being  than  which  noth- 
ing greater  can  be  thought ;  a  being  with  the  added  at- 
tribute of  existence  is  greater  than  one  merely  in  idea. 
Therefore  God  exists  not  merely  in  the  mind,  but  also  as  a 
real  existence  outside  the  mind.  The  obvious  criticism  on 
this  argument  was  seen  by  a  contemporary  of  Anselm,  a 
monk  named  Gaunilo.  He  points  out  that  it  bases  itself 
solely  upon  the  idea  of  perfection  and  the  idea  of  existence, 
and  does  not  prove  anything  whatever  about  an  objective 
reality  corresponding  to  these  ideas  of  ours.  In  essence 
this  objection  is  commonly  regarded  nowadays  as  well 
founded. 

5.  The  Growth  of  Rationalism.  Abelard  and  Conceptu- 
alism. — The  various  tendencies  which  Anselm's  personal- 
ity had  held  in  equilibrium  could  not,  however,  be  expected 
always  to  exist  together  in  entire  harmony.  The  rational 
and  logical  spirit,  grown  by  exercise,  was  bound  to  show  a 
disposition  to  break  loose  from  its  connection  with  theologi- 
cal tenets,  and  to  set  up  on  its  own  account.  In  place  of  the 
unified  intellectual  life  in  which  reason  acted  as  the  obedient 
handmaid  of  the  Church,  three  somewhat  specialized  atti- 
tudes can  be  distinguished  in  the  thought  of  the  day.  On 
the  one  hand  stood  the  theologians  proper,  who  fell  back 
upon  authority,  and  aimed  simply  to  set  forth  the  dogmas 
as  they  had  been  handed  down  from  the  Fathers.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  pure  interest  in  dialectical  and  logical  skill 


The  Middle  Ages  211 

for  its  own  sake,  apart  from  the  services  which  it  ren- 
dered to  theology,  was  also  beginning  to  manifest  itself. 
The  results  might  be  trifling,  but  the  tendency  involved  a 
dangerous  principle.  If  reason  were  given  an  independent 
footing,  next  in  order  it  would  grow  bolder,  and  attempt 
to  dictate.  Meanwhile  a  third  attitude  also  was  assuming 
importance.  Dissatisfied  alike  with  the  cold  formalism  of 
the  theologians  and  with  the  abstract  rationalism  of  the 
philosophers,  many  of  the  more  religious  natures,  revert- 
ing to  a  tendency  which  had  come  down  from  the  Neo- 
Platonists,  found  refuge  in  Mysticism.  This  movement 
connects  itself  in  particular  with  the  abbey  of  St.  Victor. 
Besides  Hugo  of  St.  Victor  (1096—1140),  and  his  followers 
RichardasA  Walter,  St.  Bernard  of  Clairvaux  { 1091-1 153) 
may  be  regarded  as  its  best-known  representative,  though 
from  a  standpoint  less  philosophically  grounded.  By  its 
cultivation  of  freedom  and  spontaneity  in  the  religious  life, 
Mysticism  had  a  part  to  play  among  the  influences  which 
later  were  to  bring  the  Middle  Ages  to  a  close. 

For  the  present,  however,  the  growing  rationalistic  spirit 
was  of  special  significance.  This  has  its  most  remarkable 
representative  in  the  famous  Abelard  (\o'j<$-i\At'Z).  Abe- 
lard  was  the  possessor  of  a  typically  French  intellect  — 
keen,  clear  cut,  impatient  of  all  mysticism  and  obscurity ; 
and  his  striking  talents  early  gave  promise  of  a  brilliant 
career.  He  became  a  pupil  of  William  of  Champeaux,  in 
Paris,  but  soon  came  into  collision  with  his  teacher,  and 
defeated  him  so  signally  in  argument  that  William's  popu- 
larity waned,  and  Abelard  was  the  hero  of  the  day.  At 
the  age  of  twenty-two  he  had  opened  a  school  of  his  own 
at  Melun,  and  both  here,  and  later  on  in  Paris,  was  extraor- 
dinarily successful  as  a  teacher.  William  was  an  extreme 
Realist,  and  in  opposition  to  him  Abelard  took  an  inter- 
mediate position.  Traditionally  he  is  regarded  as  the 
founder  of  Conceptualism ;  and  while  there  is  some  doubt 
about  his  real  teaching,  it  would  seem  to  have  contained 
the  elements  at  least  of  this  position.  Conceptualism  is 


212         A  Students  History  of  Philosophy 

substantially  identical  with  the  commonly  accepted  opin- 
ion about  the  nature  of  abstract  ideas  at  the  present  time. 
The  class  term  has  no  objective  existence  as  such  ;  it  exists 
only  as  a  thought,  a  concept  in  our  minds.  But  neither  is 
it  a  mere  breath  or  word,  out  of  all  relation  to  things  them- 
selves. The  concept  exists  in  the  particular  things  as  a 
similarity  or  identity  of  qualities,  through  whose  abstraction 
by  a  mental  act  the  concept  is  formed  ;  and  as  the  expres- 
sion of  this  similarity  it  is  objectively  valid.  There  is  even 
a  sense  in  which  we  might  say  that  the  concept  exists  inde- 
pendently of  the  things — as  an  idea,  that  is,  in  the  mind 
of  God.  A  divine  idea,  then,  a  likeness  existing  among 
qualities  in  objects,  and  an  abstraction  of  these  qualities  by 
the  human  mind  to  form  a  class  term  with  a  universal 
meaning  —  these  for  Conceptualism  are  the  factors  which 
enter  into  the  problem  of  universals. 

But  the  clearness  and  independence  of  Abelard's  mind 
showed  itself  in  other  fields  also.  He  brought  the  same 
rationalistic  temper  to  subjects  more  directly  connected 
with  the  dogmas  of  the  Church.  With  surprising  frank- 
ness he  condemns  the  credulity  which  is  willing  to  take 
beliefs  on  trust,  without  a  rational  justification.  "A  doc- 
trine is  not  believed,"  he  declares,  "because  God  has  said 
it,  but  because  we  are  convinced  by  reason  that  it  is  so." 
Doubt  is  no  sin,  as  the  Church  thought;  "by  doubting 
we  are  led  to  inquire,  and  by  inquiry  we  perceive  the 
truth."  He  confesses  to  an  admiration  for  the  ancient 
philosophers,  and  finds  expressed  in  them  the  essential 
doctrines  of  religion  and  morality.  The  noteworthy  at- 
tempt is  made  to  establish  a  theory  of  ethics  independent 
of  dogmatic  sanctions.  Christianity  itself  seems  to  him 
first  of  all  the  rehabilitation  of  the  natural  moral  law,  which 
was  revealed  to  the  Greek  sages  as  well ;  that  which  was 
mysterious  in  Christianity  he  decidedly  inclined  to  mini- 
mize. "  Shall  we  people  hell,"  he  says,  "  with  men 
whose  life  and  teachings  are  truly  evangelical  and  apos- 
tolic in  their  perfection,  and  differ  in  nothing,  or  very 


The  Middle  Ages  213 

little,  from  the  Christian  religion  ?  "  This  naturalistic  tone 
appears  in  his  treatment  of  the  particular  dogmas ;  the 
three  persons  of  the  Trinity,  for  example,  are  resolved  into 
three  attributes  of  God  —  power,  wisdom,  and  goodness  — 
united  in  a  single  personality. 

§  23.      The   Second  Period.      The  Revival  of   Aristotle. 
Thomas  Aquinas.     Dims  Scotus.      William  of  Occam 

I.  Arabian  Philosophy.  The  Crusades.  —  Abelard's 
views  were  condemned  by  the  Church ;  but  this  did  not 
prevent  the  spread  of  the  rationalistic  and  independent 
spirit  which  he  embodied.  For  a  time  it  almost  looked  as 
if  the  Renaissance  might  be  anticipated  by  several  cen- 
turies. A  large  factor  in  this  was  the  growing  influence 
of  Arabian  thought.  While  Europe  had  been  asleep, 
learning  had  taken  refuge  among  the  Mohammedans. 
The  works  of  Greek  philosophy,  especially  Aristotle's,  were 
preserved  and  studied  when  they  were  known  to  Christian 
scholars  only  in  the  most  fragmentary  form.  In  the 
courts  of  the  Eastern  caliphs,  and  in  the  kingdom  of  the 
Moors  in  Spain,  there  came  about  a  brief  period  of  culture 
in  which  a  considerable  scientific  activity  went  along  with 
a  vigorous,  though  not  very  original,  philosophical  revival. 
The  most  important  name  among  the  Arabian  commenta- 
tors and  philosophers  who  influenced  the  later  Scholasti- 
cism, is  that  of  Averroes  (1126—1198). 

The  reception  of  this  influence  was  made  easier  by  a 
change  which  was  beginning  to  come  over  the  whole  spirit 
of  the  age,  and  which  was  furthered  in  particular  by  the 
Crusades.  These  great  religious  wars  had  turned  out 
quite  otherwise  than  their  promoters  had  anticipated. 
The  religious  results,  from  the  standpoint  of  Catholicism, 
were  almost  nothing,  while  of  consequences  entirely  op- 
posed to  the  Church's  desires  there  were  a  great  number. 
The  men  of  Europe  had  their  dormant  wits  violently  and 
effectually  shaken  by  contact  with  other  peoples,  and  by 


214        A  Students  History  of  Philosophy 

the  novel  experiences  which  their  wanderings  brought 
them.  Christendom  found  to  its  surprise  that  those  whom 
it  had  been  accustomed  to  look  upon  with  contempt  as 
heretics,  were  in  reality  a  brave  and  warlike  people,  with 
many  virtues  of  their  own,  and  a  civilization  in  some 
respects  superior  to  that  of  Europe.  Contact  with  them 
inevitably  rubbed  off  to  some  extent  the  provincialism,  and 
the  unreasoning  horror  of  ideas  at  all  dissimilar  to  their 
own,  on  which  the  hold  of  the  Church  largely  depended ; 
and  the  feeling  of  respect  which  the  field  of  battle  engen- 
dered facilitated  an  exchange  of  ideas.  So  also  two  other 
tendencies,  which  were  to  weaken  the  power  of  the  Church, 
received  a  decided  stimulus  from  the  Crusades.  The  emu- 
lation and  rivalry  resulting  from  a  coming  together  of  men 
from  every  country  in  Europe,  brought  to  the  surface  a 
new  sense  of  national  spirit,  which  was  opposed  to  the 
pretensions  of  the  Church.  Furthermore,  commercial  ac- 
tivity was  given  an  immense  impetus,  owing  to  the  neces- 
sity of  transporting  the  large  armies  of  the  Crusaders,  and 
furnishing  the  supplies  required,  as  well  as  to  the  closer 
communication  brought  about  between  the  East  and  the 
West,  and  the  revelation  of  new  luxuries  and  new  wants. 
Both  of  these  things  tended  to  give  an  emphasis  to  the 
new  secular  spirit  as  opposed  to  the  religious. 

Many  of  the  conditions,  accordingly,  seemed  to  be 
favorable  to  a  breaking  away  from  the  authority  of  the 
Church.  And,  indeed,  on  a  small  scale,  many  of  the  features 
of  the  Renaissance  were  anticipated.  The  widespread  in- 
terest in  learning  is  shown  in  the  rise  of  the  great  Uni- 
versities, while  in  the  court  of  Frederick  the  Second, 
especially,  a  new  culture  was  introduced  which  was  as 
thoroughly  pagan  as  that  which  characterized  the  Italian 
cities  in  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries.  To  Frederick 
all  religion  was  alike  untrue  ;  Mohammed  and  Christ  alike 
impostors.  But  the  movement  was  premature.  It  had  no 
sufficient  knowledge  to  back  it,  and  the  hold  of  the  Church 
was  still  too  great  to  be  broken.  The  new  forces  were 


The  Middle  Ages  215 

turned  safely  into  ecclesiastical  channels,  and  spent  them- 
selves in  infusing  fresh  life  into  Scholasticism,  rather  than 
in  breaking  away  from  it.  The  Church  philosophy  got 
possession  of  the  Universities,  where  it  remained  in- 
trenched even  after  a  different  spirit  had  come  over  the 
outer  world ;  and  the  awakening  was  postponed  for  several 
centuries. 

jit.  The  Revival  of  Aristotle.  Aquinas.  —  In  turning 
the  new  tendencies  to  her  own  account,  the  Church 
showed  her  usual  astuteness.  The  chief  incentive  to  the 
threatened  revolution  in  the  intellectual  world  was  due 
to  the  opening  for  the  first  time  to  Europe  of  a  knowl- 
edge of  the  real  Aristotle,  and  the  coming  of  its  scholars 
into  contact  with  a  mind  of  the  first  order,  whose  think- 
ing was  not  specifically  theological.  It  is  the  influence 
of  Aristotle  which  is  the  dominant  factor  in  the  whole  of 
the  following  period.  At  first  the  Church  had  been  alarmed 
at  the  evident  dangers  involved  in  the  situation,  and  it  had 
tried  to  avert  them  by  condemning  Aristotle.  But  as  the 
Greek  text  came  to  be  known,  and  the  rationalistic  and 
pantheistic  tinge  which  Aristotle  had  taken  from  his  Ara- 
bian commentators  was  found  not  to  be  necessary  to  his 
interpretation,  the  attitude  of  the  Church  was  altered. 
She  began  to  realize  that  she  had  in  Aristotle  a  possible 
instrument  for  her  own  ends.  And  so  effectively  did  she 
use  this,  that  when,  later  on,  the  emancipation  of  the  intel- 
lect was  brought  about,  Aristotle,  instead  of  being,  as  he 
now  promised  to  be,  the  agent  of  that  emancipation,  was 
the  one  chiefest  obstacle  against  which  the  new  spirit  had 
to  make  war.  By  setting  up  the  dictatorship  of  Aristotle, 
the  Church  had  set  bounds  to  the  intellect  more  effectually 
than  she  had  ever  been  able  to  do  by  means  of  dogma. 
There  had  been  no  recognized  authority  in  the  realm  of 
pure  reason  in  the  earlier  Middle  Ages,  and  accordingly, 
within  the  limits  of  certain  dogmatic  results,  the  reason 
had  had  free  play.  By  establishing  now  the  supreme 
authority  of  Aristotle  in  every  sphere  to  which  reasoning 


216        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

applies  —  the  natural  world  as  well  as  the  metaphysical, 
—  and  by  interpreting  Aristotle  in  her  own  way,  a  tool  was 
at  hand  for  holding  the  reason  in  check,  without  at  the 
same  time  denying  it  its  rights.  Aristotle  was  himself 
identical  with  reason,  not  to  be  denied  or  questioned. 
Even  in  matters  of  science  the  question  was,  not  what  does 
nature  reveal,  but  what  does  Aristotle  say ;  and  when  sci- 
ence began  to  emerge,  the  authority  of  the  philosopher  was 
actively  used  to  check  its  growth.  "  My  son,"  so,  accord- 
ing to  an  anecdote,  was  the  reply  made  to  one  who  thought 
he  had  discovered  spots  in  the  sun,  "  I  have  read  Aristotle 
many  times,  and  I  assure  you  that  there  is  nothing  of  the 
kind  mentioned  by  him.  Be  certain  therefore  that  the 
spots  which  you  have  seen  are  in  your  eyes,  and  not  in  the 
sun."  In  the  formulation  of  Scholasticism  in  Aristotelian 
terms  by  St.  Thomas  Aquinas,  the  Angelic  Doctor  (1225- 
1274),  the  most  comprehensive  task  of  mediaeval  thought 
was  performed,  and  Catholic  philosophy  was  determined 
definitely  for  the  future. 

In  Aquinas,  the  formula  was  at  last  attained  which  was 
to  be  accepted  by  the  Church  as  the  final  statement  of  the 
relation  that  exists  between  philosophy  and  revelation,  be- 
tween reason  and  faith.  The  naive  confidence  in  the  abil- 
ity of  reason  to  justify  the  full  content  of  religious  belief 
had  not  been  supported  by  experience.  It  came  to  be  rec- 
ognized that  there  are  heights  to  which  reason  cannot  pos- 
sibly reach.  The  higher  truths  of  revelation  belong  to  a 
sphere  where  it  is  incompetent  to  decide ;  they  are  mys- 
teries, to  be  accepted  only  on  the  ground  of  faith  in  authority. 
But  while  the  fields  of  reason  and  of  faith  are  thus  not  co- 
extensive, and  while  therefore  philosophy  cannot  hope  to 
make  theology  fully  intelligible  to  the  limited  powers  of 
the  human  mind,  there  need  not  for  all  that  be  any  actual 
contradiction  between  the  two.  So  far  as  it  goes,  reason 
is  harmonious  with  faith ;  but  there  comes  a  point  where  it 
no  longer  is  able  to  pass  judgment,  and  here  faith  steps  in 
as  a  more  ultimate  principle,  which  stands  to  the  natural 


The  Middle  Ages  217 

powers  of  the  mind  as  their  final  consummation.  This 
relationship  is  typical  of  the  central  thought  of  Aquinas' 
whole  system  of  philosophy.  By  means  of  the  Aristotelian 
concepts  of  matter  and  form,  all  existence  is  arranged  in  a 
hierarchical  system,  in  which  the  lower  is  subordinated  to 
the  higher  —  body  to  soul,  matter  to  spirit,  philosophy  to 
theology,  the  secular  power  to  the  ecclesiastical  —  with  a 
thoroughness  and  acuteness  which  left  a  lasting  impression. 

3.  Religion  and  Reason.  The  Revival  of  Nominalism. 
—  In  the  system  of  Aquinas,  the  scholastic  philosophy 
reached  its  height.  From  this  time  on  the  interest  centres 
in  the  emergence  of  those  tendencies  which  finally  were  to 
undermine  it,  and  introduce  the  modern  period.  Without 
dwelling  upon  individual  thinkers,  it  will  be  sufficient  here 
to  point  out  the  more  important  factors  in  this  evolution. 

The  distinction  which  had  now  been  clearly  drawn 
between  natural  and  revealed  religion,  reason  and  theol- 
ogy, was  not  of  a  nature  to  stop  within  the  limits  to 
which  Aquinas  had  tried  to  confine  it.  The  notion  of 
revelation  as  being  above  reason,  furnished  a  basis  for  a 
separation  between  the  two  realms  which  grew  continually 
more  pronounced.  In  accordance  with  this  distinction, 
religion  comes  to  be  taken  as  having  a  special  organ — faith, 
or  feeling — with  regard  to  which  reason  has  nothing  to  say. 
In  one  form  or  other  this  has  been  a  widely  influential 
attitude  down  to  the  present  day.  To  the  man  of  religious 
nature  who  longs  to  be  undisturbed  in  his  cherished  beliefs, 
and  who  chafes  at  the  violence  which  often  seems  to  be  done 
alike  to  these,  and  to  his  reason,  by  the  attempt  to  bring  the 
two  together,  it  often  seems  a  welcome  relief  to  give  up 
the  whole  endeavor  to  harmonize  his  knowledge  with  his 
faith,  and  be  able  to  deny  to  reason  the  right  to  interfere 
in  the  separate  province  of  religion.  At  the  same  time  he 
gains  for  reason  a  free  play  in  its  own  proper  field,  un- 
checked by  the  irritating  feeling  that  it  must  continually 
be  squared  with  some  preconceived  result.  To-day,  for 
example,  it  is  common  to  find  men  securing  for  themselves 


218        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

the  right  to  follow  the  leadings  of  science,  and  still  to  re- 
tain the  religious  beliefs  upon  which  science  seems  to  cast 
doubt,  by  adopting  the  principle  of  a  division  of  labor,  ac- 
cording to  which  reason  is  to  be  allowed  its  validity,  but 
only  in  a  lower  and  phenomenal  sphere.  Even  if  it  comes 
to  an  apparent  contradiction,  therefore,  between  scientific 
and  religious  truth,  that  contradiction  means  nothing. 

The  intent  of  this  is  to  save  religion,  but  it  is  easy  to 
see  that  the  same  attitude  may  just  as  well  be  adopted 
from  a  different  motive.  Especially  in  an  age  when  reli- 
gious authority  is  strong,  and  requires  evasion  if  thought 
is  to  have  free  scope,  it  may  be  seized  upon  as  a  pretext 
by  men  who  have  no  concern  for  religion,  and  only  want 
a  chance  to  rationalize  the  universe.  If  revelation  and 
reason  are  distinct,  there  can  be  no  harm  in  pushing  the 
conclusions  of  reason  to  any  result,  however  extreme, 
since  religion  is  not  prejudiced  thereby.  This  attitude 
found  expression  in  the  famous  doctrine  of  the  "  twofold 
truth"  —  the  doctrine,  namely,  that  a  thing  might  be  true 
according  to  reason  which  was  not  true  theologically,  and 
vice  versa.  In  the  case  of  many  who  practically  adopted 
this  point  of  view,  there  was  no  intention  of  undermining 
the  authority  of  religion  or  the  Church.  Nevertheless,  the 
tendency  was  due  at  bottom  to  a  demand  for  the  emanci- 
pation of  the  reason  from  Church  trammels,  and  this  as 
a  matter  of  fact  must  destroy  her  authority.  The  conten- 
tion of  Aquinas,  that  certain  doctrines  are  above  the  dis- 
covery of  the  unassisted  reason,  was  gradually  widened. 
The  doctrines  which  natural  theology,  or  rational  thought, 
could  attain  to  and  defend  successfully,  decreased  in  num- 
ber, until,  in  William  of  Occam,  even  the  arguments  for  the 
existence  of  God  were  held  to  be  insufficient. 

Philosophy,  then,  is  no  longer  in  any  positive  way  a 
minister  to  theology,  as  it  had  started  out  by  being.  It  has 
become  a  mere  critical  inquiry  into  the  nature  of  reason, 
which  ends  in  discrediting  the  capacity  of  knowledge  for 
reaching  ultimate  truth,  or  for  dealing  with  anything  except 


The  Middle  Ages  219 

the  phenomenal  world.  This  is,  in  one  aspect,  the  meaning 
of  a  controversy  which  forms  one  of  the  central  points  about 
which  the  thought  of  the  later  Middle  Ages  turns  —  the 
question  as  to  the  primacy  of  the  intellect  or  of  the  will. 
The  Thomists,  or  followers  of  Aquinas,  maintained  the 
ancient  doctrine  that  intellect  is  original  and  supreme,  and 
that  God's  will  is  determined  by  His  knowledge.  Their 
opponents,  who  are  represented  by  the  Franciscans,  Duns 
Scotus  and  William,  of  Occam  (Thomas  was  a  Dominican, 
and  a  rivalry  between  the  two  orders  intensified  the  philo- 
sophical rivalry),  maintained,  on  the  contrary,  that  if  God's 
will  is  limited  by  an  eternal  truth,  then  there  is  something 
above  God  which  determines  him.  Accordingly,  God  must 
be  conceived  as  an  absolutely  free  will;  and  therefore 
truth  and  falsehood,  right  and  wrong,  are  nothing  in  them- 
selves, but  are  established  by  God's  arbitrary  act.  On  the 
practical  side,  this  means  that  religion  is  no  longer  identi- 
fied with  a  reasoned  statement  of  truth,  but  is  a  disposition 
of  will,  a  moral  life,  which  obeys  the  law  of  duty  imposed 
upon  it  by  authority.  If  truth  rests  upon  the  inscruta- 
ble will  of  God,  it  must  of  necessity  be  unknowable  by  the 
natural  reason. 

The  only  sphere  which  is  left  to  reason  is,  accordingly, 
the  lower,  natural  world,  which  does  not  come  in  contact 
with  the  realm  of  ultimate  reality.  But  when  it  has  thus 
been  forced  to  become  purely  naturalistic  in  tone,  it  is 
ready  for  a  further  step.  Men  cannot  continue  indefinitely 
to  hold  to  truth  which  not  only  has  no  rational  ground, 
but  is  contradicted  by  all  we  mean  by  reason.  That  which 
has  reason  on  its  side  cannot  fail  in  the  long  run  to  get  an 
advantage;  the  subjects  with  which  it  deals  are  going  to 
gain  constantly  in  interest,  and  in  consequent  reality  for  us. 
And  if  it  has  been  admitted  that  reason  leaves  us  in  pos- 
session only  of  the  natural  world,  from  which  all  super- 
sensible realities  are  excluded,  then  inevitably  the  conclusion 
will  be  drawn  that  this  world  is  the  only  true  one,  and  that 
the  supersensible  realities  do  not  exist.  Attention  will  be 


22O        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

directed  toward  these  verifiable  and  rational  facts,  which, 
as  a  result,  will  be  emphasized  at  the  expense  of  the  others. 
The  supersensible  world  may  still  be  handed  over  to 
theology  to  do  with  as  it  pleases,  and  there  may  be  no 
open  break  so  long  as  theology  confines  itself  to  faith 
or  feeling,  and  does  not  attempt  to  compete  with  scientific 
explanations.  This,  for  instance,  is  Bacon's  attitude  later 
on.  But  to  all  intents  and  purposes  theology  has  been 
dispossessed  of  all  real  rights.  The  tendency,  therefore, 
of  the  doctrine  of  twofold  truth  was  to  confine  philosophy 
to  the  physical  world,  and  so  to  prepare  the  ground  for 
scientific  inquiry,  as  the  highest  truth  about  the  world 
which  we  are  capable  of  knowing. 

The  same  tendency  shows  itself  in  the  revival  of  Nomi- 
nalism. The  older  Nominalism  had  failed,  because  the 
age  was  still  in  need  of  the  unifying  authority  of  the 
Church,  and  Realism  had  been  the  philosophical  justifi- 
cation of  this  authority.  Aquinas  was  a  Realist,  although 
somewhat  influenced  by  the  mediating  tendencies  repre- 
sented in  such  men  as  Abelard ;  and  so  also  was  Duns 
Scotus.  In  Scotus,  however,  the  movement  is  already 
toward  Nominalism,  which  finally  triumphs  in  William  of 
Occam.  Individual  things  are  the  only  realities  ;  concepts 
have  no  existence  extra  mentem.  Interpreted,  this  means 
that  the  period  of  authority  is  past,  and  that  the  period  of 
individualism  is  at  hand,  which  is  to  lay  the  foundations 
for  modern  progress.  Nominalism,  by  its  insistence  upon 
the  reality  of  particular  things,  justified  the  growing  scien- 
tific spirit  in  its  attention  to  facts  rather  than  to  a  priori 
dogmas.  It  justified  the  revolt  of  individuals  against  the 
ready-made  generalizations  of  the  past,  and  of  nations 
against  the  absolutism  of  the  Catholic  Church.  It  was 
no  longer,  therefore,  opposed  to  the  needs  of  the  age, 
but  was  in  line  with  a  very  essential  aspect  of  what  was 
soon  to  become  a  dominant  tendency. 

4.  The  Beginnings  of  Science.  —  By  itself,  however,  the 
mere  philosophical  development  within  Scholasticism  would 


The  Middle  Ages  221 

have  had  no  great  result.  It  needed  to  be  reenforced 
by  the  concrete  growth  of  knowledge  about  the  world, 
before  it  could  affect  in  any  very  thoroughgoing  way 
the  life  of  the  times.  During  the  Middle  Ages  them- 
selves this  was  rendered  impossible  in  any  consider- 
able degree.  An  interest  in  science  had  been  aroused 
through  contact  with  the  Mohammedans,  and  acquaint- 
ance with  the  works  of  Aristotle.  But  it  was  not  en- 
couraged either  by  the  Church  or  by  public  opinion. 
The  Church  felt  more  or  less  clearly  that  the  growth  of 
knowledge  was  a  menace  to  its  own  position,  while  to 
the  popular  mind,  a  too  close  familiarity  with  the  works  of 
nature  was  supposed  to  argue  an  unholy  connection  with 
the  powers  of  evil.  Even  the  office  of  Pope  did  not  pre- 
vent the  possessor  of  unusual  scientific  knowledge  from 
being  looked  upon  with  suspicion,  while  a  less  influential 
man,  like  the  monk  Roger  Bacon  (1214-1294),  was  com- 
pelled to  pay  the  full  penalty  for  being  in  advance  of  his 
age.  Bacon  saw  the  problems  of  science  with  remarkable 
clearness,  and  his  Opus  Majus  is  a  monument  of  industry 
and  insight.  But  as  a  result  he  only  gained  the  popular 
name  of  being  a  wizard  and  magician,  while  by  the  Church 
his  work  was  condemned,  and  he  himself  confined  for  many 
years  as  a  prisoner  in  his  cell.  In  spite  of  everything, 
however,  the  scientific  spirit  persisted,  and  grew  in  strength  ; 
and  when  at  last  the  conditions  were  ripe,  it  suddenly  at- 
tained a  development  which  has  been  the  means  of  deter- 
mining the  whole  course  of  modern  thought. 


LITERATURE 

Poole,  Illustrations  of  Thought  in  the  Middle  Ages. 

Adams,  Civilization  in  the  Middle  Ages. 

Duruy.  History  of  the  Middle  Ages. 

Emerton,  Mediaeval  Europe. 

Townsend.  The  Great  Schoolmen  of  the  Middle  Ages. 

West,  Alcuin. 


222        A  Students  History  of  Philosophy 

Church,  St.  Anselm. 
Storrs,  Bernard  of  Clairvaux. 
Compayr^,  Abelard. 

Laurie,  The  Rise  and  Early  Constitution  of  Universities. 
Vaughan,  Hours  with  the  Mystics. 

Rashdall,  Universities  of  Europe  in  the  Middle  Ages,  2  vols. 
Deane,  Translation  of  Anselm's  Proslogium,  Monologium,  Cur  Deus 
Homo. 


TRANSITION   TO   MODERN   PHILOSOPHY 

§  24.    The  Renaissance.     Bruno 

I.  The  Renaissance  and  the  Reformation, — The  neces- 
sary conditions  for  the  introduction  of  the  modern  period 
were  brought  about  by  the  great  movement  which,  from 
its  various  aspects,  is  called  the  Renaissance,  or  the  Re- 
vival of  Learning,  or  the  Reformation.  It  has  already 
been  seen  that  this  was  no  sudden  appearance,  but  that 
the  influences  bringing  it  about  had  been  at  work  at 
least  as  early  as  the  Crusades.  From  that  time  on  soci- 
ety was  gradually  becoming  transformed,  away  from  the 
ecclesiastical,  and  toward  the  secular  ideal.  The  rapid 
growth  of  commerce  and  industry  necessarily  gave  an 
emphasis  to  secular  interests.  The  new  social  class  which 
consequently  rose  to  importance  alongside  the  nobles  and 
clergy,  tended  to  ally  itself  with  the  king  in  his  struggles 
with  the  feudal  lords,  since  only  through  a  strong  cen- 
tral authority  could  trade  and  industry  be  protected;  and 
this  joined  with  other  influences  in  building  up  a  new 
national  spirit.  Presently  nations  began  to  attempt,  with 
growing  success,  to  break  away  from  ecclesiastical  control, 
and  to  separate  the  civil  power  from  the  spiritual.  Here, 
again,  the  Nominalism  of  the  later  Scholastics  threw  in  its 
lot  with  the  new  tendency,  and  we  find  Occam  openly 
on  the  side  of  national  authority,  in  its  conflicts  with  the 
Pope. 

It  was  in  Italy  that  the  Renaissance  first  became  an 
accomplished  fact.  Here  the  greater  commercial  activity, 
and  the  intense  rivalry  between  the  different  cities,  had 
early  given  rise  to  a  pronounced  and  aggressive  individual- 

223 


224        A  Students  History  of  Philosophy 

ism,  and  a  sharpening  of  the  wits  without  much  reference 
to  moral  scruples.  As  early  as  the  fourteenth  century  the 
main  features  of  the  Renaissance  —  its  interest  in  life, 
and  its  keener  appreciation  of  the  past,  and  the  literature 
of  the  past  —  appear  in  Petrarch  and  Boccaccio.  But  it 
is  from  the  year  1453  that  the  Renaissance  is  commonly 
dated.  In  that  year  Constantinople,  the  capital  of  the 
Eastern  Empire,  which  had  continued,  up  to  this  time,  to 
maintain  an  ignoble  existence,  was  taken  by  the  Turks. 
Many  of  the  Greek  scholars,  driven  from  their  country, 
took  refuge  in  Italy.  Here  they  found  the  soil  prepared 
for  them,  and  the  result  was  immediate  and  revolutionary. 
The  revelation  of  the  real  spirit  of  classical  antiquity,  to 
men  beginning  to  feel  the  possession  of  new  powers  of  life 
and  capacities  of  appreciation,  and  heartily  sick  of  the  dry 
and  tasteless  theological  nourishment  with  which  they  had 
had  to  satisfy  themselves  for  centuries,  completely  over- 
turned all  their  old  ideas.  The  shackles  of  the  Church  fell 
from  their  minds,  and  they  turned  back  to  the  past  with  a 
passionate  delight.  A  civilization  sprang  up  which,  as  op- 
posed to  the  religious  civilization  of  the  Middle  Ages,  was 
thoroughly  pagan  in  its  spirit  —  pagan  not  only  in  its  love 
of  beauty  and  literature,  and  its  delight  in  living,  but  also  — 
as  a  reaction  against  the  asceticism  of  the  Church  —  in  its 
vices,  and  its  frank  sensualism  and  egoism.  The  whole 
scale  of  values  was  shifted.  Men  cared  more  for  an  old 
manuscript  of  the  poets  than  for  the  prophets  and  apos- 
tles ;  for  a  Greek  vase  or  statue,  than  for  temperance  and 
holy  living.  A  new  zest  for  all  that  was  human  and  beauti- 
ful found  expression  in  a  great  period  of  artistic  creation. 
Even  the  court  of  St.  Peter's  was  paganized,  and  we  have 
the  spectacle  of  a  series  of  Popes,  sunk  in  vices,  indeed, 
which  have  made  their  names  synonyms  of  infamy,  but 
still  accomplished  scholars,  artistic  dilettantes,  and  patrons 
of  art  and  learning.  In  philosophy,  nearly  every  system 
of  ancient  times  was  revived.  Plato,  the  artist  among 
philosophers,  attracted  a  large  following,  and  a  Platonic 


Transition  to  Modern  Philosophy          225 

Academy  was  founded  in  Florence.  In  opposition  to  him, 
other  scholars  set  up  Aristotle,  interpreted  not  as  he  had 
been  by  the  Church,  but  freely  and  naturalistically.  So  also 
Pythagoreanism  and  Neo-Platonism,  Stoicism,  Epicurean- 
ism, and  Scepticism,  and  even  some  of  the  earlier  Greek 
schools,  found  adherents.  And  in  all  there  was  the  same 
eagerness  to  throw  off  ecclesiastical  restraints,  in  the  inter- 
ests of  a  real  intellectual  activity. 

Beyond  Italy,  the  Renaissance  took  on  a  somewhat 
different  form.  In  Germany,  where  it  had  to  do  with  a 
type  of  mind  naturally  profounder  and  more  religious,  and 
where,  moreover,  the  religious  life  had  already  been  deep- 
ened by  the  mysticism  of  Eckhart,  and  Tauler,  and  the 
Brethren  of  the  Common  Life,  its  most  characteristic 
result  was  the  Reformation  of  Luther.  Even  its  Human- 
ism, as  typified  in  Erasmus  and  Melancthon,  had  more  or 
less  strong  religious  sympathies.  But  the  Reformation  was 
still  in  principle  the  same  revolt  against  authority.  By 
its  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith,  apart  from  any  exter- 
nal mediation,  and  its  appeal  to  immediate  Christian  ex- 
perience, it  stood  directly  for  individual  freedom,  as  opposed 
to  the  pretensions  of  the  Church. 

With  whatever  differences  of  form,  however,  the  change  in 
the  attitude  toward  life  was  a  permanent  one.  The  human 
spirit,  once  freed  from  the  restrictions  which  ecclesiasti- 
cism  had  put  upon  it,  could  never  return  again  to  the  same 
bondage.  By  the  impulse  which  had  thus  been  given,  the 
whole  aspect  of  the  world  had  been  changed.  National 
life  and  secular  pursuits  had  received  a  strength  which  made 
it  impossible  that  the  Church  should  ever  usurp  again  in 
any  universal  way  its  old  power.  And  along  with  these, 
there  followed  other  changes,  which  in  a  short  space  still 
further  revolutionized  existing  conditions.  The  voyages  of 
Columbus  and  Vasco  da  Gama,  Balboa  and  Magellan,  result- 
ing, among  other  things,  in  the  discovery  of  America  and  of 
the  road  to  the  Indies,  opened  up  vast  possibilities  which  had 
not  been  dreamed  of  before.  They  changed  the  map  of  the 


226        A   Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

world,  and  furnished  a  powerful  spur  to  the  imaginative  and 
creative  spirit  —  witness  the  Elizabethan  age.  In  quick  suc- 
cession came  also  a  series  of  inventions  of  world-wide  signifi- 
cance. The  discovery  of  gunpowder  revolutionized  the  art 
of  war,  and  put  the  common  soldier  and  the  noble  on  an  equal 
footing ;  printing  first  made  possible  a  generally  diffused 
knowledge  and  culture ;  while  the  telescope  laid  open  the 
structure  of  the  heavens,  and  the  compass  enlarged  the 
boundaries  of  the  earth. 

And,  finally,  there  came  forward,  to  realize  the  new  possi- 
bilities in  the  way  of  knowledge,  a  brilliant  group  of  scientists 
of  the  first  magnitude  —  Tycho  Brahe,  Copernicus,  Galileo, 
Kepler,  and  others  —  whose  investigations  gave  a  firm 
foundation  to  those  scientific  methods  and  conceptions  which 
were  destined  to  enter  so  vitally  into  all  future  thought.  In 
particular  Copernicus,  by  shifting  the  centre  of  the  universe 
from  our  earth,  and  making  this  but  a  point  in  a  vast  system, 
created  a  profound  impression  on  men's  imaginations,  and 
perhaps  more  than  any  other  one  influence  helped  to  cut 
the  ground  from  beneath  the  narrow  and  earth-centred 
theological  view  of  life,  which  hitherto  had  dominated 
men's  minds.  "  The  earth  moves  "  became  the  recognized 
formula  of  advance.  God  could  no  longer  be  conceived 
as  having  His  local  habitation  in  the  heavens ;  the  whole 
geography  of  the  spiritual  world  was  thrown  into  con- 
fusion, and  the  way  opened  for  a  deeper  conception  of 
God's  relation  to  the  universe.  The  results  of  all  this  appear 
in  the  emergence  of  a  wholly  new  way  of  looking  at  the 
world  —  the  way  of  the  modern  man.  Nothing  could  be 
more  modern  in  tone,  for  example,  than  the  essays  of 
Montaigne.  In  their  cool  common  sense,  their  cautious 
scepticism — the  assertion  of  the  right  of  a  man  to  think 
and  judge  for  himself,  —  their  clear  condemnation  of  super- 
stition and  religious  fanaticism,  and  their  wide  spirit  of 
toleration,  they  represent  the  complete  divergence  of 
cultivated  thought  from  ecclesiastical  influence,  and  the 
secularization  of  human  life  and  interests. 


Transition  to  Modern  Philosophy          227 

2.  Bruno.  —  Turning  now  to  the  way  in  which  this  enor- 
mous change  is  mirrored  in  philosophical  theory,  we  may 
pass  over  the  transition  period  with  just  a  word.  At  first,  as 
has  been  said,  men  had  been  compelled  to  go  back  to  the 
remoter  past  to  get  that  concrete  content  to  life,  the  lack 
of  which  repelled  them  in  the  Middle  Ages,  but  which  they 
were  not  yet  ready  to  supply  from  their  own  resources. 
But  soon  the  mere  renewal  of  ancient  systems  gave  place 
to  more  original  attempts  to  satisfy  the  needs  of  the  time, 
though  these  are  still  so  closely  bound  by  the  influences  they 
are  trying  to  escape,  that  their  results  are  necessarily  un- 
clear, and  suggestive  rather  than  final.  Starting  at  first 
within  the  general  limits  of  Scholasticism,  these  attempts 
soon  passed,  in  Giordano  Bruno,  into  a  bitter  hostility  to 
the  Church  and  the  Church  theology.  Bruno's  philosophy 
is,  in  many  ways,  the  most  characteristic  product  of  the 
Renaissance  period.  He  himself  was  a  Dominican  monk, 
born  near  Naples  in  1548.  His  fiery  spirit  and  poetic 
temperament  soon  turned  him,  however,  from  sympathy 
with  dogmatic  and  ascetic  Catholicism.  Persecuted  in 
consequence  by  the  Church,  he  passed  a  varied  and  un- 
happy life,  wandering  from  country  to  country  —  Switzer- 
land, Germany,  England,  France, —  but  nowhere  finding 
peace.  At  last  he  fell  into  the  clutches  of  the  Inquisition, 
and  was  burnt  at  the  stake  in  Rome  (1600). 

In  Bruno  there  are  all  the  elements  which  go  to  make  the 
Renaissance  period  so  attractive.  There  is  the  ardent 
enthusiasm  for  nature  and  beauty ;  the  revolt  from  asceti- 
cism and  Scholasticism  alike ;  the  consciousness  of  a  new 
and  vaster  universe  suddenly  laid  open  to  man,  and  the 
confidence  that  it  can  be  grasped  as  a  whole,  without  the 
long  process  of  careful  investigation  whose  necessity  time 
was  to  show ;  and,  finally,  along  with  this,  the  inevitable 
ferment  and  unclearness  of  new  ideas  imperfectly  appre- 
hended. In  his  zeal  for  life  Bruno  goes  back  to  the  an- 
cient Hylozoism.  All  nature  is  alive.  A  world  soul 
permeates  everything.  The  universe  is  a  great  organism, 


228         A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

whose  dwelling-place  is  the  infinite  reaches  of  space.  To 
this  emotional  realization  of  the  infiniteness  and  divineness 
of  the  natural  world,  which  sweeps  away  the  restrictive 
barriers  of  theology,  his  eyes  had  been  opened  first  by  the 
Copernican  theory.  "  By  this  knowledge  we  are  loosened 
from  the  chains  of  a  most  narrow  dungeon,  and  set  at  lib- 
erty to  rove  in  a  most  august  empire ;  we  are  removed  from 
presumptuous  boundaries  and  poverty  to  the  innumerable 
riches  of  an  infinite  space,  of  so  worthy  a  field,  and  of  such 
beautiful  worlds."  Nothing  now  is  limited  and  restricted, 
and  nothing  is  dead  matter.  As  he  looks  forth  on  the 
world,  man  comes  in  contact  everywhere  with  a  power 
akin  to  him,  which  is  nearer  to  him  than  he  to  himself, 
and  yet  which  pulsates  through  the  remotest  regions  of  the 
heavens,  and  informs  all  things.  "  It  is  not  reasonable  to 
believe  that  any  part  of  the  world  is  without  a  soul  life, 
sensation,  and  organic  structure.  From  this  infinite  All, 
full  of  beauty  and  splendor,  from  the  vast  worlds  which 
circle  above  us,  to  the  sparkling  dust  of  stars  beyond,  the 
conclusion  is  drawn  that  there  are  an  infinity  of  creatures, 
a  vast  multitude,  which,  each  in  its  degree,  mirrors  forth 
the  splendor,  wisdom,  and  excellence  of  the  divine  beauty." 
The  stars  have  intellectual  and  sense  life,  —  "  those  sons 
of  God  who  shouted  for  joy  at  the  creation,  the  flaming 
heralds  his  ministers,  and  the  ambassadors  of  his  glory,  a 
living  mirror  of  the  infinite  Deity." 

Accordingly  we  must  rid  ourselves  of  the  paltry  thought 
that  it  is  for  us  that  all  things  are  created.  "  Only  one 
bereft  of  his  reason  could  believe  that  those  infinite  spaces, 
tenanted  by  vast  and  magnificent  bodies,  are  designed 
only  to  give  us  light,  or  to  receive  the  clear  shining  of  the 
earth."  "  If  in  the  eyes  of  God  there  is  but  one  starry 
globe,  if  the  sun  and  moon  and  all  creation  are  made  for 
the  good  of  the  earth  and  for  the  welfare  of  man,  humanity 
may  be  exalted,  but  is  not  the  Godhead  abased  ?  Is 
this  not  to  straiten  and  confine  His  providence?  What!  is 
a  feeble  human  creature  the  only  object  worthy  of  the  care 


Transition  to  Modern  Philosophy          229 

of  God  ?  No,  the  earth  is  but  a  planet,  the  rank  she 
holds  among  the  stars  is  but  by  usurpation ;  it  is  time  to 
dethrone  her.  The  ruler  of  our  earth  is  not  man,  but  the 
sun,  with  the  life  which  breathes  in  common  through  the 
universe.  Let  the  earth  eschew  privilege;  let  her  fulfil 
her  course,  and  obey.  Let  not  this  contemplation  dispirit 
man,  as  if  he  thought  himself  abandoned  by  God ;  for  in 
extending  and  enlarging  the  universe,  he  is  himself  ele- 
vated beyond  measure,  and  his  intelligence  is  no  longer 
deprived  of  breathing  space  beneath  a  sky  meagre,  narrow, 
and  ill-contrived  in  its  proportions.  And  better  still,  if 
God  is  everywhere  present  in  the  whole  of  the  world,  fill- 
ing it  with  his  infinity  and  with  his  immeasurable  great- 
ness, if  there  is  in  reality  an  innumerable  host  of  suns  and 
stars,  what  of  the  foolish  distinction  between  the  heaven 
and  the  earth  ?  Dwellers  in  a  star,  are  we  not  compre- 
hended within  the  celestial  plains,  and  established  within 
the  very  precincts  of  heaven  ? "  And  so  the  distinction 
between  the  divine,  and  the  secular,  or  earthly,  disappears 
before  a  wider  knowledge.  "This  is  that  philosophy 
which  opens  the  senses,  which  satisfies  the  mind,  which 
enlarges  the  understanding,  and  which  leads  man  to  the 
only  true  beatitude;  for  it  frees  him  from  the  solicitous 
pursuit  of  pleasure,  and  from  the  anxious  apprehensions 
of  pain,  seeing  that  everything  is  subject  to  a  most  good 
and  efficient  cause." * 

In  this  conception  of  the  universe  it  will  be  noticed 
that  there  are  two  sides,  both  of  which  Bruno  wishes  to 
emphasize.  On  the  one  hand,  he  insists  upon  the  unity  of 
the  whole.  Reality  is  an  eternal  spirit,  one  and  indivisi- 
ble, and  as  such  alone  possesses  truth.  All  things  that 
appear  are  but  images  of  this  ultimate  reality.  "The 
heavens  are  a  picture,  a  book,  a  mirror,  wherein  man  can 
behold  and  read  the  form  and  the  laws  of  supreme  good- 
ness, the  plan  and  total  of  perfection."  "  From  this  spirit, 

1  Taken  from  Frith,  Life  of  Bruno,  pp.  42-46.  (Paul,  Trench,  Trub- 
ner  &  Co.) 


230        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

which  is  One,  all  being  flows ;  there  is  one  truth  and  one 
goodness  penetrating  and  governing  all  things.  In  nature 
are  the  thoughts  of  God.  They  are  made  manifest  in 
figures  and  vestiges  to  the  eye  of  sense ;  they  are  repro- 
duced in  our  thoughts,  where  alone  we  can  arrive  at  con- 
sciousness of  true  being.  We  are  surrounded  by  eternity 
and  by  the  uniting  of  love.  There  is  but  one  centre  from 
which  all  species  issue,  as  rays  from  a  sun,  and  to  which 
all  species  return.  There  is  but  one  celestial  expanse, 
where  the  stars  choir  forth  unbroken  harmony.  From  this 
spirit,  which  is  called  the  Life  of  the  Universe,  proceeds 
the  life  and  soul  of  everything  which  has  soul  and  life,  the 
which  life,  however,  I  understand  to  be  immortal,  as  well 
in  bodies  as  in  their  souls,  there  being  no  other  death 
than  division  and  congregation."  J  All  differences  seem  at 
times  to  disappear  in  this  eternal  whole ;  and  by  reason  of 
the  emphasis  which  he  puts  upon  it,  Bruno  may  be  said  to 
anticipate  the  pantheism  of  Spinoza.  But  his  thought  has 
also  the  other  side,  which  tends  away  from  the  mere  ab- 
stract form  of  unity.  God  is  the  whole,  but  a  whole  which 
is  present  in  its  completeness  in  each  single  part.  He  is 
in  the  blade  of  grass,  in  the  grain  of  sand,  in  the  atom  that 
floats  in  the  sunbeam,  as  well  as  in  the  boundless  All. 
Each  man  is  a  point  in  which  the  fulness  of  the  Godhead 
is  reflected ;  it  represents  the  whole ;  it  is  the  microcosm 
which  in  miniature  reproduces  the  great  macrocosm  of  the 
universe.  With  Bruno  "  man  is  a  mirror  within  a  mirror, 
and  his  perception  of  things  is  a  reflection  of  nature,  which 
is  the  reflection  of  the  thought  of  God." 

3.  Paracelsus.  —  Evidently,  then,  the  return  to  nature 
lends  itself,  in  this  its  early  form,  rather  to  a  poetical  glori- 
fication of  the  world,  an  imaginative  interpretation  which 
reaches  its  goal  by  a  subjective  leap,  rather  than  to  the 
sober  attention  to  details  which  was  needed  before  science 
could  be  established.  For  a  time,  the  revival  of  the  essen- 
tially true  ideal  of  control  over  nature  as  a  main  end  of  hu- 

1  Ibid.,  p.  278. 


Transition  to  Modern  Philosophy          231 

man  knowledge,  showed  itself  in  the  form  of  an  interest  in 
magic,  astrology,  alchemy,  a  search  for  the  philosopher's 
stone.  The  control  was  to  come  about,  not  by  patient 
industry,  but  by  the  possession  of  some  secret  wisdom, 
some  all-compelling  formula  or  word,  which  should  force 
the  powers  of  the  spiritual  world  to  do  man's  bidding. 
Paracelsus  is  the  type  of  a  host  of  men  who  sprang  up  all 
over  Europe  —  men  of  enthusiasm  for  nature,  and  to  some 
extent  of  original  and  high  ideals,  but  men  whose  un- 
disciplined imaginations  led  them  beyond  the  bounds  of 
sober  thinking.  In  the  immense  activity  which  resulted, 
some  valuable  knowledge  about  the  world  was,  it  is  true, 
attained.  In  alchemy,  in  particular,  the  search  for  that 
which  should  turn  everything  to  gold  was  the  means  of 
giving  a  start  to  the  science  of  chemistry.  It  was  neces- 
sary, however,  not  only  that  the  barren  logomachies  of 
Scholasticism,  but  also  that  these  more  attractive,  but 
almost  equally  unfruitful  methods  of  magic  and  theosophy, 
should  be  definitely  rejected,  and  the  foundations  laid  for 
an  entirely  different  view  of  the  world,  before  progress 
could  be  secure. 

LITERATURE 

Burckhardt,  The  Civilization  of  the  Renaissance. 

Montaigne,  Essays. 

Cellini,  Autobiography. 

Owen,  The  Sceptics  of  the  Italian  Renaissance. 

Vaughan,  Hours  with  the  Mystics. 

Symonds,  Renaissance  in  Italy,  7  vols. 

Frith,  Life  of  Bruno. 

§  25.    Bacon 

i.  The  Defects  of  the  Existing  Philosophy. — The  man 
who  came  forward  to  attempt  this  task  was  Francis  Bacon 
(1561-1626).  The  way  in  which  philosophy  now  begins 
to  pass  out  from  the  hands  of  ecclesiastics  and  School- 
men is  itself  significant  of  the  change  that  has  taken 
place.  In  the  Middle  Ages,  all  the  philosophers  were  con- 


232         A   Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

nected  with  the  Church  ;  even  Bruno  was  a  Dominican 
monk.  But  Bacon  is  a  lawyer  and  statesman,  Hobbes  a 
private  tutor,  Descartes  a  soldier,  Spinoza  a  grinder  of 
lenses.  Bacon's  personal  character  is  not  one  that  we  can 
view  with  unmixed  satisfaction.  Pope's  phrase — "the 
wisest,  brightest,  meanest  of  mankind"  —is  no  doubt  ex- 
aggerated for  the  sake  of  antithesis.  Nevertheless  there 
is,  in  Bacon's  checkered  career  —  a  career  ending  in  his 
disgrace,  and  removal  from  the  Lord  Chancellorship  — 
too  much  truckling  to  those  in  power,  too  elastic  a  con- 
science, and  too  obvious  a  lack  of  any  delicate  sense  of 
personal  honor  and  dignity,  to  be  altogether  attractive. 
Nor,  indeed,  as  a  thinker,  is  Bacon  deserving  of  the  ex- 
cessive admiration  which  has  sometimes  been  bestowed 
upon  him.  On  the  more  ultimate  questions  of  philosophy 
he  has  little  to  say ;  and  even  on  the  side  of  science  and 
the  world  of  nature,  his  work  is  not  in  any  sense  final.  He 
continually  promises  more  than  he  is  able  to  perform.  It  was 
other  men  who  were  actually  doing  the  things  whose  neces- 
sity Bacon  was  pointing  out,  and  Bacon  was  not  always  able 
to  recognize  the  value  of  their  work.  He  never  accepted 
the  Copernican  theory  ;  and  the  valuable  investigations  of 
Gilbert,  an  Englishman,  in  connection  with  the  properties  of 
the  magnet,  he  was  inclined  to  depreciate,  on  the  ground 
that  they  covered  only  a  limited  field.  Nor,  again,  is  the 
method  which  it  was  his  main  purpose  to  elaborate,  accepted 
nowadays  as  an  adequate  account  of  scientific  procedure. 

But  in  spite  of  these  defects,  the  work  which  Bacon  accom- 
plished was  a  highly  important  one.  What  the  times  needed 
was  not  simply  men  to  carry  out  practically  the  new  methods 
of  science  in  a  detailed  investigation  of  the  world,  but  also 
some  one  with  the  breadth  of  vision  to  realize  clearly,  and 
in  a  large  way,  what  these  methods  meant,  to  emphasize 
their  relation  to  previous  methods,  and  to  set  them  in  con- 
nection with  some  worthy  end  in  terms  of  human  life  as  a 
whole.  For  this  task  Bacon  was  admirably  equipped.  The 
catholicity  and  universality  of  his  scientific  interests,  which 


Transition  to  Modern  Philosophy          233 

might  have  hindered  him  in  the  actual  investigation  of 
scientific  detail,  enabled  him  here  to  keep  in  view  and  call 
attention  to  the  larger  and  more  important  aspects.  His 
reputation  as  a  statesman  lent  to  his  words  a  special 
weight ;  while  the  gifts  of  a  great  writer,  helped  out  by  a 
wide  learning,  gave  his  exposition  an  impressiveness  and 
attractiveness  which  much  increased  its  influence. 

Bacon  starts  out  with  the  recognition  that  philosophy 
has  broken  down,  and  is  in  general  disrepute.  What  now 
is  the  reason  for  this,  when  other  things  are  prospering  ? 
Take  the  mechanical  arts  —  "  they  grow  and  perfect  them- 
selves daily  as  if  enjoying  a  certain  vital  air,  while  philos- 
ophy, like  a  statue,  is  adorned  and  celebrated,  but  moves 
not.  The  former  also  are  seen  rude  and  commonly  with- 
out proportion  and  cumbrous  in  the  hands  of  their  first 
authors,  but  afterward  get  new  strength  and  aptness ;  the 
latter  is  in  its  greatest  vigor  with  its  first  author,  and  after- 
ward declines."  This  is  a  feeling  about  philosophy  which 
frequently  finds  expression,  but  in  Bacon's  time  it  had  a 
special  justification.  "The  fable  of  Scylla  is  a  lively  image 
of  the  present  state  of  letters,  with  the  countenance  and 
expression  of  a  virgin  above,  the  end  in  a  multitude  of  bark- 
ing questions,  fruitful  of  controversy,  and  barren  of  effect."1 

Now  this  unfortunate  state  of  affairs  has  three  main 
roots,  three  "  distempers  of  learning  "  :  the  first  fantastical 
learning,  the  second  contentious  learning,  and  the  last  deli- 
cate learning.  By  delicate  learning,  Bacon  means  the  dilet- 
tante spirit  which  the  Renaissance  had  made  fashionable. 
Here  words  usurp  the  place  of  substance;  matters  of 
style  and  polished  phrases  are  substituted  for  real  weight 
of  meaning.  "  Of  this  vanity  Pygmalion's  frenzy  is  a  good 
emblem ;  for  words  are  but  the  images  of  matter,  and  ex- 
cept they  have  life  of  reason  and  invention,  to  fall  in  love 
with  them  is  all  one  as  to  fall  in  love  with  a  picture."  The 
second  distemper  is  that  which  the  Schoolmen  exemplify, 
and  the  image  of  Scylla  will  stand  for  it.  The  first,  or 

1  Great  Instauralion,  Preface. 


234        A  Students  History  of  Philosophy 

fantastical  learning,  which  manifests  itself  alike  in  impos- 
ture and  credulity,  is  the  spirit  which  makes  men  run  after 
old  wives'  tales,  wonders,  and  ghosts,  and  miracles ;  or,  in 
a  pseudo-scientific  form,  gains  credence  for  the  fancies  of 
alchemy  and  natural  magic. 

From  these  three  roots  grow  the  numerous  errors  which 
infect  philosophy,  and  of  these  Bacon  names  a  long  list. 
There  is  the  extreme  affecting,  either  of  antiquity,  or  novelty, 
"  whence  it  seemeth  the  children  of  time  do  take  after  the 
nature  and  malice  of  the  father.  For  as  he  devoureth  his 
children,  so  one  of  them  seeketh  to  devour  and  suppress  the 
others ;  while  antiquity  envieth  there  should  be  new  addi- 
tions, novelty  cannot  be  content  to  add,  but  it  must  deface. 
Antiquity  deserveth  that  reverence  that  men  should  make  a 
stand  thereupon,  and  discover  what  is  the  best  way;  but 
when  the  discovery  is  well  taken,  then  to  make  progression. 
And  to  speak  truly,  those  times  are  the  ancient  times  when 
the  world  is  ancient,  and  not  those  which  we  account  ancient 
by  a  computation  backward  from  ourselves."  Another  error, 
depending  on  this,  is  a  "distrust  that  anything  should  be  now 
to  be  found  out  which  the  world  should  have  missed  and 
passed  over  so  long  time;"  and  again,  the  "  conceit  that  of 
former  opinions  the  best  hath  still  prevailed  and  suppressed 
the  rest,  so  that  the  result  of  new  search  will  be  nothing 
save  to  light  upon  exploded  errors.  The  truth  is,  that  time 
seemeth  to  be  of  the  nature  of  a  river  or  stream,  which 
carrieth  down  to  us  that  which  is  light  and  blown  up,  and 
sinketh  and  drowndeth  that  which  is  weighty  and  solid." 
So,  again,  we  may  mention  the  premature  formulation  of 
knowledge  which  checks  its  growth ;  an  extreme  speciali- 
zation ;  too  much  confidence  in  man's  own  wit  and  under- 
standing, apart  from  the  contemplation  of  nature;  an 
impatience  of  doubt,  and  haste  to  assertion  without  due 
and  mature  suspension  of  judgment ;  a  lazy  content  with 
discourses  already  made. 

And,  finally,  there  is  the  greatest  error  of  all,  "the  mistak- 
ing or  misplacing  of  the  last  or  farthest  end  of  knowledge. 


Transition  to  Modern  Philosophy          235 

For  men  have  entered  into  a  desire  of  learning  or  knowl- 
edge, sometimes  upon  a  natural  curiosity  and  inquisitive 
appetite,  sometimes  to  entertain  their  minds  with  vanity 
and  delight,  sometimes  for  ornament  and  reputation,  some- 
times to  enable  them  to  victory  of  wit  and  contradiction,  and 
most  times  for  lucre  and  profession ;  and  seldom  to  give  a 
true  account  of  their  gift  of  reason,  to  the  benefit  and  use 
of  men.  As  if  there  were  sought  in  knowledge  a  couch 
whereupon  to  rest  a  restless  spirit;  or  a  tarasse  for  a 
wandering  and  variable  mind  to  walk  up  and  down  with  a 
fair  prospect ;  or  a  fort  or  commanding  ground  for  strife 
and  contention  ;  or  a  shop  for  profit  or  sale ;  and  not  a  rich 
storehouse  for  the  glory  of  the  creator,  and  the  relief  of 
man's  estate.  Howbeit  I  do  not  mean,  when  I  speak  of 
use  and  action,  that  end  before  mentioned  of  the  applying 
of  knowledge  to  lucre  and  profession ;  for  I  am  not  igno- 
rant how  much  that  divideth  and  interrupteth  the  prosecu- 
tion and  advancement  of  knowledge,  like  unto  the  golden 
ball,  thrown  before  Atalanta,  which  while  she  goeth  aside 
and  stoppeth  to  take  up,  the  race  is  hindered.  But  as 
both  heaven  and  earth  do  conspire  and  contribute  to  the 
use  and  benefit  of  man,  so  the  end  ought  to  be  for  both 
natural  and  moral  philosophies,  to  separate  and  reject  vain 
speculations,  and  whatsoever  is  empty  and  void,  and  to 
preserve  and  augment  whatever  is  solid  and  fruitful."  1 

2.  The  Aim  of  Philosophy.  —  For  Bacon,  then,  philoso- 
phy, in  opposition  to  the  practical  barrenness  of  the 
Scholastics,  has  the  definite  function  of  serving  for  the 
benefit  and  relief  of  the  state  and  society  of  man ;  for 
a  "  restitution  and  reinvesting  of  man  to  the  sovereignty 
and  power,  in  that  wheresoever  he  shall  be  able  to  call 
the  creatures  by  their  true  name,  he  shall  again  command 
them  which  he  had  in  his  first  state  of  creation."2  Such 
an  ideal  is  pictured  in  the  unfinished  fragment  of  the 
New  Atlantis.  Here  Bacon  imagines  an  island,  shut 

1  Adv.  of  Learning  (Spedding's  ed.,  Vol.  VI,  pp.  117-135). 
8  Interpretation  of  Nature,  Vol.  VI,  p.  34. 


236         A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

off  from  the  rest  of  the  world,  and  raised  to  a  high 
point  of  felicity  and  civilization ;  and  this  is  brought 
about  simply  by  a  systematic  application  of  the  human 
mind  to  a  discovery  of  the  secrets  of  nature,  and  the 
utilization  of  these  for  inventions  intended  to  secure 
man's  control  over  his  environment.  In  a  sort  of  scien- 
tific society  called  Solomon's  House,  this  aim  is  carried 
out  with  a  high  degree  of  organization  and  efficiency ; 
and  Bacon  gives  rein  to  his  imagination  in  anticipating 
all  sorts  of  possible  results  of  inventive  skill,  including 
the  microphone  and  telephone,  the  flying  machine  and 
submarine  vessels,  to  say  nothing  of  several  kinds  of 
perpetual  motion.  But  now  this  whole  conception  is 
thoroughly  practical  and  secular.  All  speculative  ques- 
tions relating  to  God  and  His  purposes,  or  to  the  ultimate 
destiny  of  man,  are  excluded  from  the  realm  of  reason, 
and  handed  over  to  theology  and  faith.  At  most  a  con- 
templation of  the  world  —  and  this  is  the  true  sphere  of 
philosophy  —  may  be  made  to  refute  atheism  ;  but  it  can 
give  no  more  positive  content.  To  be  sure,  Bacon  still  is 
ready  to  acknowledge  the  truth  of  theology  in  its  own 
sphere  ;  but  he  deprecates  any  mingling  of  theology  and 
reason.  "  The  knowledge  of  man  is  as  the  waters,  some 
descending  from  above,  and  some  springing  from  beneath  ; 
the  one  informed  by  the  light  of  nature,  the  other  inspired 
by  divine  revelation."  1  "  If  any  man  shall  think  by  view 
and  inquiry  into  sensible  and  material  things  to  attain  to 
any  light  for  the  revelation  of  the  nature  and  will  of  God, 
he  shall  dangerously  abuse  himself.  It  is  true  that  the 
contemplation  of  the  creatures  of  God  hath  for  end,  as  to 
the  natures  of  the  creatures  themselves,  knowledge,  but  as 
to  the  nature  of  God,  no  knowledge,  but  wonder,  which  is 
nothing  else  but  contemplation  broken  off  or  losing  itself. 
Nay,  further,  as  it  was  aptly  said  by  one  of  Plato's  school, 
the  sense  of  man  resembles  the  sun,  which  openeth  and 
revealeth  the  terrestrial  globe,  but  obscureth  and  concealeth 

1  Adv.  of  Learning,  Vol.  VI,  p.  207. 


Transition  to  Modern  Philosophy          237 

the  celestial;  so  doth  the  sense  discover  natural  things, 
but  darken  and  shut  up  divine."1  Theology  is  grounded 
only  upon  the  word  of  God,  and  not  upon  the  light  of 
nature ;  to  the  latter  it  may  be  but  foolishness,  as  "  that  faith 
which  was  accounted  to  Abraham  for  righteousness  was 
of  such  a  point  as  whereat  Sarah  laughed,  who  therein  was 
an  image  of  natural  reason."2  Whether  the  profession  of 
faith  in  theology  is  altogether  sincere  or  not  is  a  matter  of 
some  doubt ;  at  any  rate,  the  thing  that  Bacon  is  most  con- 
cerned with  is,  not  to  establish  faith,  but  to  free  reason, 
and  give  it  full  play  in  its  proper  sphere.  As  reason  has 
nothing  to  say  about  the  concerns  of  theology,  so  the- 
ology, on  its  side,  must  not  meddle  in  matters  which  do 
not  belong  to  it.  The  Bible  is  made  to  teach  religion, 
not  science ;  and  to  endeavor,  as  some  have  done,  to 
build  a  system  of  natural  philosophy  on  the  first  chapter 
of  Genesis,  or  other  parts  of  Scripture,  is  to  seek  the  dead 
among  the  living. 

3.  Method  of  Induction.  — To  sum  up,  then,  the  past  ill 
success  of  science  has  been  due  solely  to  the  lack  of  a  true 
method.  Those  who  have  treated  of  it  have  been  empirics, 
or  dogmatical.  "  The  former,  like  ants,  only  heap  up  and 
use  their  store ;  the  latter,  like  spiders,  spin  out  their  own 
webs.  The  bee,  a  mean  between  both,  extracts  matter  from 
the  flowers  of  the  garden  and  the  field,  but  works  and 
fashions  it  by  its  own  efforts.  The  true  labor  of  philoso- 
phy resembles  hers,  for  it  neither  relies  entirely  or  prin- 
cipally on  the  powers  of  the  mind,  nor  yet  lays  up  in  the 
memory  the  matter  afforded  by  the  experiments  of  natural 
history  or  mechanics  in  its  raw  state,  but  changes  and  works 
it  in  the  understanding."  3  What,  accordingly,  is  the  new 
method  by  which  Bacon,  with  the  self-confidence  charac- 
teristic of  a  century  to  whose  fresh  and  vigorous  powers 
no  achievement  seemed  impossible,  looked  to  see  human 
thought  and  life  straightway  revolutionized  ? 

1  Inter,  of  Nature,  Vol.  VI,  p.  29.  2  Adv.  of  Learning,  Vol.  VI,  p.  393. 

8  Novum  Organum,  §  95. 


238        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

In  the  first  place,  it  is  Empiricism,  as  opposed  to  the 
a  priori  syllogistic  reasoning  of  the  Scholastics.  Bacon 
thought  that  "theories  and  opinions  and  common  notions, 
so  far  as  can  be  obtained  from  the  stiffness  and  firmness 
of  the  mind,  should  be  entirely  done  away  with,  and  that 
the  understanding  should  begin  anew  plainly  and  fairly 
with  particulars,  since  there  is  no  other  entrance  open  to 
the  kingdom  of  nature  than  to  the  kingdom  of  heaven, 
into  which  no  one  may  enter  except  in  the  form  of  a  little 
child."  *  These  prepossessions,  of  which  it  is  our  first  duty 
to  rid  ourselves,  are  what  Bacon  metaphorically  calls  Idols : 
—  Idols  of  the  Tribe,  or  the  predispositions  which  by  the 
natural  working  of  the  mind  more  or  less  beset  every  one  ; 
Idols  of  the  Cave,  "  for  every  one,  besides  the  faults  he 
shares  with  his  race,  has  a  cave  or  den  of  his  own  which 
refracts  and  discolors  the  light  of  nature,"  due  to  mental 
and  bodily  structure,  habits,  education,  or  accident;  Idols 
of  the  Forum,  of  society  and  language,  "  for  men  believe 
that  then"  reason  governs  words,  but  it  is  also  true  that 
words,  like  the  arrows  from  a  Tartar  bow,  are  shot  back 
and  react  upon  the  mind ; "  and  Idols  of  the  Theatre,  or 
those  which  get  into  men's  minds  from  the  dogmas  of 
philosophers,  so  called  because  all  received  systems  are  but 
"  so  many  stage  plays,  representing  worlds  of  their  own 
creation  after  an  unreal  and  scenic  fashion."2 

Abandoning  these  presuppositions,  we  are  to  begin  with 
the  particular  facts,  and  only  arrive  at  generalities  by  a 
gradual  process,  instead  of  at  a  single  leap.  The  syllogism, 
on  which  the  Schoolmen  rely,  is  a  useful  instrument  in  cer- 
tain cases,  but  it  is  incompetent  to  reach  the  truth  of  nature. 
Dealing  as  it  does  with  words  and  ideas,  rather  than  with 
things,  whenever  these  ideas  happen  to  be  vague,  incom- 
plete, and  not  sufficiently  defined,  —  and  this  is  usually  the 
case,  — it  falls  at  once  to  the  ground.  Let  us  abandon  all 
such  trifling  with  nature,  and  come  to  her  with  open  minds 
to  learn  what  she  has  to  teach.  "  If  there  be  any  humility 

Organum,  §  68.  *  Ibid.,  39  ff. 


Transition  to  Modern  Philosophy          239 

toward  the  Creator,  any  reverence  for  or  disposition  to  mag- 
nify His  works,  any  charity  for  man  and  anxiety  to  relieve 
his  sorrows  and  necessities,  any  love  of  truth  in  nature,  any 
hatred  of  darkness,  any  desire  for  the  purification  of  the 
understanding,  we  must  entreat  men  again  and  again  to 
discard,  or  at  least  set  apart  for  a  while,  these  preposterous 
philosophies,  which  have  preferred  theses  to  hypotheses,  led 
experience  captive,  and  triumphed  over  the  works  of  God, 
and  to  approach  with  humility  and  veneration  to  unroll  the 
volume  of  creation,  to  linger  and  meditate  therein,  and  with 
minds  washed  clean  from  opinions  to  study  it  in  purity  and 
integrity.  For  this  is  that  sound  and  language  which 
went  forth  into  all  lands,  and  did  not  incur  the  confusion 
of  Babel ;  this  should  men  study  to  be  perfect  in,  and, 
becoming  again  as  little  children,  condescend  to  take  the 
alphabet  of  it  into  their  hands,  and  spare  no  pains  to 
search  and  unravel  the  interpretation  thereof,  but  pursue 
it  strenuously,  and  persevere  even  unto  death." 1 

Induction  from  empirical  particulars  is  thus  the  general 
method  of  science.  But  induction  must  itself  escape  the 
perils  that  attend  it  as  it  has  commonly  been  applied. 
What  Logic  has  had  in  a  meagre  way  to  say  of  induction, 
as  a  mere  enumeration  of  particulars,  is  vicious  and  incom- 
petent. "  To  conclude  upon  an  enumeration  of  particulars 
without  instance  contradictory,  is  no  conclusion,  but  a  con- 
jecture ;  for  who  can  assure  in  many  subjects,  upon  those 
particulars  which  appear  of  a  side,  that  there  are  not 
others  on  the  contrary  side  which  appear  not.  As  if 
Samuel  should  have  rested  upon  those  sons  of  Jesse  which 
were  brought  before  him,  and  failed  of  David,  which  was 
in  the  field."  2  True  induction,  accordingly,  must  not  be  in 
too  great  haste  to  generalize,  but  must  consider  carefully 
all  opposing  instances.  It  must  not  specialize  and  confine 
itself  to  a  few  objects,  but  must  be  universal  in  its  scope; 
for  no  one  can  successfully  investigate  the  nature  of  any 

1  Nat.  and  Exp.  Hist.,  Vol.  IX,  pp.  370-371. 

2  Adv.  of  Learning,  Vol.  VI,  p.  265. 


240        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

object  by  considering  that  object  alone.  It  must  not  be 
too  ready  to  run  after  immediate  utility,  but  must  look  for 
experiments  that  shall  afford  light  rather  than  profit,  "  imi- 
tating the  divine  creation,  which  only  produced  light  on 
the  first  day,  and  assigned  that  whole  day  to  its  creation, 
without  adding  any  material  work." 1  And  it  must  subject 
its  data  to  the  most  careful  experimental  examination,  "  not 
following  the  common  example  of  accepting  any  vague 
report  or  tradition  for  fact ;  so  that  a  system  has  been 
pursued  in  philosophy  with  regard  to  experience,  resem- 
bling that  of  a  kingdom  or  state  which  would  direct  its 
councils  or  affairs  according  to  the  gossip  of  city  and 
street  politicians,  instead  of  the  letters  and  reports  of 
ambassadors  and  messengers  worthy  of  credit."2 

The  thing  most  to  be  desired,  then,  is  the  creation  of  a 
definite  method,  which  shall  enable  us  to  avoid  these  pit- 
falls, and  put  in  our  hands  an  instrument  for  conquering 
nature.  "  For  the  fabric  of  the  universe  is  like  a  labyrinth 
to  the  contemplative  mind,  and  the  guides  who  offer  their 
services  are  themselves  confused.  In  so  difficult  a  matter 
we  must  despair  of  man's  unassisted  judgment,  or  even  of 
any  casual  good  fortune ;  we  must  guide  our  steps  by  a 
clew,  and  the  whole  path  from  the  very  first  perceptions 
of  our  senses  must  be  secured  by  a  determined  method. 
Nor  must  I  be  thought  to  say  that  nothing  whatever  has 
been  done  by  so  many,  and  so  much  labor.  But  as  in 
former  ages,  when  men  at  sea  used  only  to  steer  by  their 
observation  of  the  stars,  they  were  indeed  able  to  coast  the 
shores  of  the  continent,  or  some  small  and  inland  seas ; 
but  before  they  could  traverse  the  ocean,  and  discover  the 
regions  of  the  New  World,  it  was  necessary  that  the  use 
of  the  compass  —  a  more  trusty  and  certain  guide  in  their 
voyage  —  should  be  first  known  ;  even  so  the  present  dis- 
coveries in  the  arts  and  sciences  are  such  as  might  be 
found  out  by  meditation,  as  being  more  open  to  the  senses, 
and  lying  immediately  beneath  our  common  notions  ;  but 

1  Great  Instauration,  Preface.  2  Nowum  Organum,  §  98. 


Transition  to  Modern  Philosophy          241 

before  we  are  allowed  to  enter  the  more  remote  and  hidden 
parts  of  nature,  it  is  necessary  that  a  better  and  more 
perfect  use  and  application  of  the  human  mind  should  be 
introduced."  1 

More  definitely,  the  new  method  from  which  Bacon 
hoped  so  much  was  briefly  this :  After  clearing  the  mind 
of  presuppositions,  the  next  step  is  to  gather  and  carefully 
tabulate  all  possible  knowledge  of  the  facts  of  nature  ;  for 
it  is  useless  to  clear  the  mirror  if  it  have  no  images  to  re- 
flect. These  facts  are  not  to  be  taken  at  haphazard,  but 
are  to  be  the  result  of  careful  and  exact  experiment,  in 
which  the  natural  imperfections  of  the  senses  are  to  be 
assisted  by  whatever  instruments  and  processes  may  be 
necessary.  Such  a  catalogue  of  facts  Bacon  himself 
started,  and  he  expected  that  a  determined  and  con- 
certed effort  on  the  part  of  men  of  science  would  soon 
render  it  practically  exhaustive.  The  problem  of  science 
now  is  to  discover  what,  following  the  scholastic  terminol- 
ogy, Bacon  calls  the  "forms"  of  things.  Every  "simple 
nature,"  that  is,  or  ultimate  quality,  has  a  form,  or  essence, 
or  law,  which  is  always  present  where  the  quality  is,  and 
which,  if  it  can  be  discovered,  will  always  serve  to  super- 
induce the  quality  in  any  particular  object.  Suppose,  then, 
that  we  wish  to  discover  the  form  of  a  simple  nature  like 
heat.  Using  the  tabulations  we  have  made  of  all  the  cases 
in  nature  where  heat  appears,  and,  again,  of  cases  where 
it  is  absent,  we  find,  by  a  process  of  comparison  and  exclu- 
sion, what  the  form  of  heat  must  be.  It  cannot  be  weight, 
e.g.,  for  we  find  heavy  bodies  in  both  lists  ;  nor  can  it  be 
a  host  of  other  things  for  the  same  reason.  And  at  last 
we  hit  upon  motion  as  the  one  thing  which  always  is  pres- 
ent when  heat  is  present,  and  absent  when  heat  is  absent. 
Finally,  we  may  draw  up  a  third  list,  which  represents  the 
presence  of  the  quality  in  varying  degrees ;  and  in  this  we 
ought  to  find  the  form  presenting  a  similar  variation.  This 
is,  in  brief,  Bacon's  scientific  method,  though  of  course  it 

1  Great  Instauration,  Preface. 
& 


242         A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

admits  of  working  out  in  much  greater  detail,  particularly 
in  the  way  of  formulating  certain  kinds  of  cases  which  are 
especially  illuminating  as  test  instances. 

The  results  of  Bacon's  work  were  incommensurate  with 
the  promises  he  had  held  out.  What  he  did  do  was  to  call 
attention  in  an  impressive  way  to  the  necessity  for  induc- 
tion, experiment,  and  the  empirical  study  of  facts.  But 
his  great  work  remained  at  his  death  a  mere  sketch  of  a 
method  which  he  had  found  it  impossible  to  exhibit  in  its 
actual  working ;  and  he  had  not  sufficiently  understood 
the  conditions  of  science  to  lay  out  a  path  for  others.  In 
particular,  he  was  almost  wholly  blind  to  the  important 
part  which  deduction  plays  in  scientific  inquiry.  As  he 
conceived  it,  Bacon's  method  was  almost  mechanical  in  its 
nature,  leaving  little  to  that  scientific  imagination  and 
bold  fertility  of  hypothesis  which  characterizes  the  great 
scientists.  "  Our  method  of  discovering  the  sciences,"  he 
says,  "  is  such  as  to  leave  little  to  the  acuteness  and  strength 
of  wit,  and,  indeed,  rather  to  level  wit  and  intellect.  For 
as  in  the  drawing  of  a  straight  line  or  accurate  circle  by 
the  hand,  much  depends  upon  its  steadiness  and  practice, 
but  if  a  ruler  or  compass  be  employed  there  is  little  occa- 
sion for  either,  so  it  is  with  our  method." 1 

LITERATURE 

Bacon,  Chief  Works :  Advancement  of  Learning  (1605);  Novum 
Organum  (1620)  ;  De  dignitate  et  augmentis  scientiarum  (1623)  ;  New 
Atlantis. 

Fowler,  Bacon. 

Spedding,  Life  and  Times  of  Francis  Bacon,  2  vols. 

Fischer,  Bacon  and  his  Successors. 

Nichol,  Bacon,  2  vols. 

Morris,  British  Thought  and  Thinkers. 

§  26.     Hobbes 

I.  The  deductive  side,  whose  importance  Bacon  had 
overlooked,  was  emphasized  by  another  Englishman,  who 

1  Novum  Organum,  §  6l. 


Transition  to  Modern  Philosophy          243 

also  attempted  to  raise  science  to  a  philosophy.  Thomas 
Hobbes,  the  son  of  a  clergyman,  was  born  at  Malmesbury 
in  1588.  After  passing  through  the  University  of  Oxford, 
he  became  a  tutor  in  the  Cavendish  family,  with  which  he 
remained  more  or  less  closely  connected  throughout  the 
course  of  a  long  life.  In  his  earlier  years  he  gave  no  spe- 
cial philosophical  promise.  He  took  no  interest  in  the 
scholastic  doctrines,  which  still  were  taught  at  Oxford,  but 
neither  did  he  actively  revolt  against  them  ;  his  tastes  lay 
rather  in  a  different  direction.  It  was  not  till  his  fortieth 
year  that  an  accidental  event  gave  a  new  turn  to  his 
thought.  Picking  up  a  book  on  geometry,  of  which  to 
that  time  he  had  been  ignorant,  he  was  greatly  impressed 
by  it.  "  It  is  impossible,"  he  is  reported  to  have  said  as 
he  read  the  47th  proposition  ;  and  as  he  went  back,  and 
traced  the  steps  which  led  up  to  the  proof  of  the  proposi- 
tion, an  interest  was  aroused  which  set  him  at  once  to  the 
study  of  mathematics.  And  the  result  of  this  new  study, 
combined  with  a  growing  interest  in  the  mechanical  sci- 
ences which  had  already  transformed  the  educated  thought 
of  the  day,  was  the  emergence  of  the  idea  which  he  was 
to  make  the  basis  of  a  complete  philosophy. 

This  idea  was,  that  the  cause  of  all  events  whatsoever 
can  be  reduced  to  motion,  and  thus  can  be  made  amenable 
to  mathematical  and  deductive  treatment.  Philosophy  is 
the  reasoned  knowledge  of  effects  from  causes,  and  causes 
from  effects ;  and  since  these  are  always  motions,  philoso- 
phy is  the  doctrine  of  the  motion  of  bodies.  Such  an  idea 
meant  the  freeing  of  science  from  esoteric  natures,  Aristo- 
telian forms,  final  causes,  and  its  restriction  to  exact  quan- 
titative investigations.  It  is  true  that  Hobbes  was  only 
pointing  out  what  was  already  the  conscious  method  of  his 
great  scientific  contemporaries.  Nor  was  he  able  to  con- 
tribute to  the  history  of  science  any  results  to  be  compared 
in  value  for  a  moment  with  theirs.  He  came  to  the  study 
of  mathematics  too  late  ever  to  be  a  master  of  it,  and  in  his 
extended  controversies  with  mathematicians  of  his  day,  he 


244         -A  Students  History  of  Philosophy 

committed  himself  to  positions  that  were  hopelessly  in  the 
wrong,  as,  for  example,  in  his  insistence  on  the  possibility 
of  squaring  the  circle.  But  with  Hobbes  it  is  not  a  matter 
simply  of  scientific  method.  He  intends  to  assert  a  philo- 
sophical principle,  which  is  absolutely  universal,  and 
which  results  in  an  entirely  mechanical  and  materialistic 
world  view.  Not  only  is  a  mechanical  explanation  to  be 
given  to  events  in  the  material  world,  but  the  same  method 
is  to  be  followed  in  psychology  and  sociology.  The  life 
of  man  is  to  be  shown  to  result  from  a  higher  complex- 
ity of  motions ;  and  the  life  of  society,  in  turn,  is  a  still 
more  complex  mechanism,  strictly  determined,  and  so 
capable  of  being  treated  deductively.  Accordingly  in 
Hobbes'  original  plan,  a  trilogy  of  works  —  De  Corpore,  De 
Homine,  and  De  Cive  —  was  to  follow  up  these  mechan- 
ical principles  through  all  their  workings,  in  order  to  cover 
the  whole  sphere  of  existence.  « 

A  significant  part  of  Hobbes'  position  is  thus  the  re- 
duction of  consciousness  to  motion.  He  identifies  it,  that 
is,  with  those  changes  in  the  nervous  system  which  accom- 
pany and  condition  it  —  a  confusion  which  is  the  peculiar 
vice  of  materialism.  Consciousness  is  only  the  feeling  of 
these  brain  changes.  All  the  conscious  life  thus  reduces 
itself  to  sensations,  which  are  combined  in  various  ways. 
Since  knowledge  is  due  simply  to  the  setting  up  of  motions 
in  the  brain,  the  old  theory  that  images  or  copies  of  things 
enter  the  mind  must  be  rejected.  Our  sensations  are  not 
mirrors  of  external  realities,  but  wholly  subjective. 

2.  It  was  not,  however,  as  a  physicist  or  psychologist, 
but  rather  as  a  social  philosopher,  that  Hobbes  won  his 
greatest  influence.  As  it  happened,  he  was  induced  by  the 
course  of  events  to  change  his  original  plan,  and  produce 
the  last  part  of  his  work  earlier  than  he  had  intended. 
The  occasion  of  this  was  the  political  situation  in  England, 
which  resulted  in  the  beheading  of  Charles  the  First  and 
the  exile  of  the  Royalists.  Hobbes,  by  his  connection 
with  the  Cavendishes,  was  naturally  in  sympathy  with  the 


Transition  to  Modern  Philosophy          245 

Royalist  party,  and  thought  that  he  had  a  message  for  the 
times.  The  fundamental  importance  of  his  theory,  for 
subsequent  thought,  lies,  not  so  much  in  its  actual  details, 
as  hi  the  fact  that  it  set  up  the  ideal  of  a  purely  natural- 
istic treatment  of  the  ethical  and  social  life  of  man,  an 
attempt  to  understand  it  simply  in  terms  of  its  natural 
environment. 

Hobbes  starts  from  the  conception  of  man  as  naturally 
self-seeking  and  egoistic,  and  nothing  more.  A  man  loves 
only  himself ;  he  cares  for  others  only  as  they  minister  to 
his  own  pleasure.  "  If  by  nature  one  man  should  love 
another  as  man,  there  is  no  reason  why  every  man  should 
not  equally  every  man."  This  idea  of  human  nature 
Hobbes  corroborates  by  various  facts  drawn  from  a  cynical 
observation  of  men's  foibles.  In  a  company,  for  example, 
is  not  each  one  anxious  to  tell  his  own  story,  and  impatient 
of  listening  to  others ;  and  when  one  leaves,  are  not  the 
rest  always  ready  to  talk  over  his  faults  ?  There  is  no  dis- 
interested satisfaction  in  social  intercourse ;  "  all  the  pleas- 
ure and  jollity  of  mind  consists  in  this,  even  to  get  some, 
with  whom  comparing,  it  may  find  somewhat  wherein  to 
triumph  and  vaunt  itself."  1 

Now  in  a  state  of  nature,  where  selfish  characteristics 
rule  unrestrained,  the  result  must  be  a  condition  of  contin- 
ual warfare,  in  which  every  man's  hand  is  raised  against 
his  neighbor.  All  men  will  have  an  appetite  for  the  same 
things,  and  each  man's  selfishness,  accordingly,  will  lead 
him  to  encroach  upon  his  fellows  whenever  he  has  the 
opportunity.  Under  such  conditions  there  is  no  satisfac- 
tion possible  in  life,  no  place  for  industry,  navigation, 
commodious  building,  knowledge  of  nature,  arts,  letters, 
society ;  "  and,  which  is  worst  of  all,  continual  fear  and 
danger  of  violent  death,  and  the  life  of  man,  solitary,  poor, 
nasty,  brutish,  and  short."  Does  any  one  doubt  that  this 
is  what  human  nature,  unrestrained,  would  lead  to  ?  "  Let 
him  therefore  consider  with  himself,"  says  Hobbes,  "when 

1  De  Cive,  I,  2,  5. 


246        A  Students  History  of  Philosophy 

taking  a  journey,  he  arms  himself,  and  seeks  to  go  well 
accompanied ;  when  going  to  sleep,  he  locks  his  doors ; 
when  even  in  his  house,  he  locks  his  chests ;  and  this 
when  he  knows  there  be  laws  and  public  officers  armed  to 
revenge  all  injuries  shall  be  done  him."  J 

It  is  the  intolerableness  of  this  state  of  affairs  which 
gives  rise  to  society  and  government.  Society,  indeed, 
does  not  call  into  play  any  new  or  non-egoistic  impulses. 
All  social  life  springs  either  from  poverty  or  vainglory, 
and  it  exists  for  glory  or  for  gain.  But  it  is  found  that 
selfishness  can  be  gratified  better  by  peace  than  by  war. 
"  The  passions  that  incline  men  to  peace  are  fear  of  death, 
desire  of  such  things  as  are  necessary  to  commodious  liv- 
ing, and  a  hope  by  their  industry  to  obtain  them.  And 
reason  suggesteth  convenient  articles  of  peace  upon  which 
men  may  be  drawn  to  agreement."  2  An  enlightened  self- 
interest  will  lead  a  man  to  see  that  it  is  vastly  preferable 
for  him  to  give  up  the  abstract  right  to  everything  which 
he  is  strong  enough  to  wrest  from  other  men  and  keep, 
and  to  refrain  from  aggression  upon  their  liberty  and  pos- 
sessions, provided  he  is  thus  certain  of  securing  a  like 
immunity  for  himself. 

But  this  is  only  possible  on  two  conditions :  First,  all 
men  alike  must  enter  into  this  agreement  to  respect  one 
another's  rights;  and,  second,  the  carrying  out  of  their 
compact  must  be  guaranteed  by  the  creation  of  a  single 
power,  sufficiently  strong  to  enforce  its  demands  upon 
individuals,  since  the  only  way  to  keep  men  to  their  con- 
tracts is  by  physical  compulsion.  "  Covenants  without 
the  sword  are  but  words,  and  of  no  strength  to  secure  a 
man  at  all ;  "  3  witness  the  acts  of  nations,  and  the  almost 
entire  lack  of  good  faith  and  honor  in  their  dealings  with 
one  another,  since  here  there  is  no  such  authority  to  com- 
pel them  to  live  up  to  their  promises.  For  the  sake, 
then,  of  peace  and  protection,  men  will  be  willing  to  hand 
over  their  individual  rights  and  powers  to  one  man,  or 

1  Leviathan,  Ch.  13.  *  Ibid.  » Ibid.,  Ch.  1 7. 


Transition  to  Modern  Philosophy          247 

assembly  of  men,  submit  their  wills  to  a  single  will,  which 
they  thus  endow  once  for  all  with  the  supreme  authority 
necessary  to  maintain  order.  All  men  will  find  this  to  their 
advantage,  for  there  is  no  one  enough  superior  to  his  fel- 
lows to  be  secure  against  aggression.  "  For  as  to  the 
strength  of  body,  the  weakest  has  strength  enough  to 
kill  the  strongest,  either  by  secret  machination  or  by  con- 
federacy with  others  that  are  in  the  same  danger  with 
himself."  An  even  greater  equality  exists  in  natural  gifts 
of  the  mind ;  "for  there  is  not  ordinarily  a  greater  sign  of 
the  equal  distribution  of  a  thing  than  that  every  man  is 
contented  with  his  own  share."  *  When  this  agreement 
comes  about,  then,  society  and  government  succeed  to  the 
original  state  of  anarchy. 

Now  one  consequence  flowing  from  this  theory  is  that 
right  and  morality  are  a  creation  of  the  state ;  they  relate 
to  man  only  in  society,  and  not  in  his  original  solitude. 
Naturally,  man  has  nothing  but  instincts  of  self-seeking 
and  self-preservation,  and  there  is  no  limit  to  these  except 
the  power  of  gratifying  them.  Obligation,  duty,  right  and 
wrong,  have  as  yet  no  meaning.  Duty  only  arises  when 
there  comes  in  an  outside  power  to  impose  laws  ;  and  this 
power  is  the  state.  Right  and  wrong,  then,  are  identical 
with  the  commands  and  prohibitions  of  the  state ;  law  is 
the  public  conscience.  "The  desires  and  other  passions 
of  men  are  in  themselves  no  sin ;  no  more  are  the  actions 
that  proceed  from  those  passions,  till  they  know  a  law  that 
forbids  them,  which,  till  laws  be  made,  they  cannot  know ; 
nor  can  any  law  be  made  till  they  have  agreed  upon  the 
person  that  shall  make  it."  2  A  man  can  have  no  individ- 
ual morality,  therefore,  which  conflicts  with  these  com- 
mands of  his  rulers.  In  making  such  a  claim,  he  would 
be  breaking  the  contract  which  gives  rise  to  morality,  and 
putting  himself  outside  the  pale  of  society,  in  which  alone 
the  words  have  meaning. 

So  religion,  also,  must  necessarily  be  a  state  affair ;  as 
1 /«</.,  Ch.  13.  *ibid. 


248        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

the  commonwealth  is  one  person,  it  should  exhibit  to  God 
but  one  worship.  Hobbes  takes  for  granted  that  each 
man  will,  if  left  to  himself,  attempt  to  force  his  own  opin- 
ions on  other  men ;  and  so  the  central  authority  of  the 
state  is  necessary,  here  as  elsewhere,  to  keep  men  within 
bounds.  Rights  of  conscience  and  of  private  judgment  are, 
accordingly,  mere  impertinences.  Religion  is  not  some- 
thing to  be  believed  on  reason,  but  accepted  on  authority. 
"For  it  is  with  the  mysteries  of  our  religion  as  with 
wholesome  pills  for  the  sick,  which  swallowed  whole  have 
the  virtue  to  cure,  but  chewed,  are  for  the  most  part  cast 
up  again  without  effect." 1  We  must  trust  in  him  that 
speaketh,  though  the  mind  be  incapable  of  any  notion  at 
all  from  the  words  spoken.  But  now  who  shall  judge  the 
claims  of  the  revelation  to  be  from  God  ?  who  shall  guar- 
antee the  authority  of  the  Bible  itself  ?  Evidently,  unless 
we  go  back  to  private  judgment  again,  not  individuals, 
nor  any  arbitrary  collection  of  them  in  a  church,  but  only 
the  commonwealth  as  a  whole.  Outward  conformity  to 
the  worship  of  the  Established  Church,  therefore,  and  a 
profession  of  belief,  is  a  necessity  of  civil  order.  Mean- 
while in  your  own  heart  you  may  believe  what  you  please, 
if  only  you  keep  it  to  yourself.  If  this  is  thought  disin- 
genuous, Hobbes  bids  you  remember  that,  in  your  profes- 
sion of  belief  under  compulsion,  the  king  is  really  acting, 
not  you,  and  so  that  you  are  not  responsible  for  the 
contradiction. 

The  practical  issue  of  all  this  is  that  the  will  of  the  state 
—  that  is,  of  the  king,  or  the  authorities  who  represent  the 
established  government  —  is  supreme,  and  that  disobedi- 
ence or  rebellion  is  in  every  case  unjustified.  Nothing  can 
release  the  subject  from  the  duty  of  obedience.  The  con- 
tract is  not  between  people  and  ruler,  but  is  a  covenant  of 
the  people  with  one  another,  to  which  the  ruler  is  not  a 
party;  and  accordingly  no  possible  act  of  his  can  be  a 
breach  of  contract,  and  furnish  an  excuse  for  rebellion. 


Transition  to  Modern  Philosophy          249 

Nothing  the  sovereign  can  do  to  a  subject  can  properly  be 
called  injustice.  The  king  is  acting  by  the  authority  given 
him  by  the  people,  and  to  complain  of  his  act  is  to  com- 
plain of  oneself ;  if  the  subject  dissents,  he  has  already 
voluntarily  made  his  dissent  a  crime.  Does  the  king  seize 
a  man's  property  ?  He  has  property  rights  only  with  ref- 
erence to  others,  not  to  the  sovereign.  The  king  is  the 
recipient  of  power  freely  handed  over  to  him,  and  once 
given,  this  cannot  be  recalled.  For  what  would  such  a 
recall  mean  ?  It  would  mean  that  society  no  longer  exists, 
that  no  one  remains  to  judge  disputes,  and  that  the  original 
anarchy  has  returned ;  and  any  conceivable  act  of  despot- 
ism on  the  part  of  the  ruler  is  preferable  to  this. 

3.  The  philosophy  of  Hobbes  had  shown  a  clear  under- 
standing of  certain  aspects  of  the  scientific  problem,  but  it 
was  not  altogether  fitted  to  give  the  new  impetus  for  which 
philosophy  was  waiting.  In  the  first  place,  its  theory  of 
knowledge  was  not  satisfactory.  Like  the  whole  scientific 
movement  of  the  day,  Hobbes  accepted  Nominalism,  and 
denied  the  reality  of  universals.  Concepts,  accordingly,  are 
mere  counters  which  the  mind  uses  to  reckon  with,  and 
represent  no  objective  realities.  Now  so  long  as  we  insist 
upon  the  empirical  side  of  science,  as  Bacon  did,  there  is 
not  so  obvious  a  difficulty  in  attributing  reality  simply  to 
individual  things.  But  when,  with  Hobbes,  we  lay  em- 
phasis on  deduction  and  mathematical  laws,  trouble  arises. 
For  these  laws  are  concepts,  or  universals,  and  so,  instead 
of  having  the  highest  reality  for  science,  they  would  seem 
to  have  no  reality  at  all.  By  his  theory  of  knowledge, 
mathematical  deduction  is  a  mere  manipulation  of  subjec- 
tive counters  in  the  mind,  which  have  no  objective  validity. 
To  make  his  science  of  any  value,  however,  they  ought  to 
have  precisely  that  external  truth  which  they  do  not  possess. 

In  the  second  place,  a  universal  philosophy  should  give 
its  due,  not  simply  to  material  facts,  but  also  to  the  human, 
conscious  side  which  makes  up  the  other  great  division 
into  which  phenomena  fall.  Hobbes'  materialism  fails  to 


250        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

do  this,  and  so  it  comes  short  of  an  adequate  philosophy. 
It  is  true  that  physical  laws  can  be  appealed  to  more  or 
less  successfully  to  account  for  the  appearance  and  con- 
nection of  mental  phenomena.  Hobbes'  position  has  thus 
a  methodological  value,  and  is  an  anticipation  of  modern 
physiological  psychology.  But  as  metaphysics  it  is  crude 
and  unsatisfactory.  The  two  facts  cannot  be  identified, 
and  a  sensation  made  quite  the  same  thing  as  a  motion 
of  brain  particles,  except  by  a  confusion  of  thought.  It 
needed  a  clearer  recognition  of  the  distinctive  character 
of  consciousness,  and  an  appreciation  of  the  great  prob- 
lems which  its  relationship  to  the  material  world  involves, 
to  bring  about  the  rise  of  modern  philosophy  in  its  fullest 
sense.  This  is  attained  in  Descartes. 

LITERATURE 

Hobbes,  Chief  Works  :  On  Human  Nature  (1650)  ;  De  Cive  (1642)  ; 
Leviathan  (1651);  De  Corpore  (1655);  Of  Liberty  and  Necessity 
(1654)  ;  De  Homine  (1658). 

Sneath,  The  Ethics  of  Hobbes. 

Bonar,  Philosophy  and  Political  Economy. 

Robertson,  Hobbes. 

Morris,  British  Thought  and  Thinkers. 

Patten,  Development  of  English  Thought. 

Watson,  Hedonistic  Theories. 

Stephen,  Hobbes. 

Woodbridge,  The  Philosophy  of  Hobbes  in  Extracts  and  Notes  col- 
lected from  his  Writings. 


III.   MODERN    PHILOSOPHY 


§  27.    Introduction 

I.  BEFORE  proceeding  with  the  series  of  great  modern 
philosophers,  it  will  be  well  to  sum  up  briefly  what  the 
Middle  Ages  had  accomplished,  and  what  problems  were 
left  for  later  philosophy  to  attempt  to  solve.  It  has  been 
said  that  the  task  of  the  Middle  Ages  was  essentially  a 
task  of  training.  It  took  the  unformed  material  which  the 
Germanic  races  offered,  and  by  a  process  of  centuries  of 
authority,  and  by  ways  which  were  often  harsh,  crude,  and 
arbitrary,  it  succeeded  in  instilling  into  them  so  thoroughly 
certain  habits  of  thought  and  action,  that  these  remain  a 
part  of  our  inheritance  to  the  present  day.  Now  of  course 
such  an  attitude  of  unreasoning  acceptance  does  not  repre- 
sent the  highest  attainment.  In  the  stress  of  conditions 
in  the  mediaeval  period,  the  specific  contribution  of  Chris- 
tianity—  the  bringing  back  of  conduct  to  the  inner  per- 
sonality, and  the  founding  of  all  the  outer  life  on  the 
individual  will  and  conscience — had  tended  to  be  obscured. 
The  great  work  of  modern  times  was  to  bring  this  again 
to  the  front,  and  to  replace  external  law  by  free  activity, 
which,  however,  should  not  be  lawless,  but  a  law  to  itself. 
Without  abolishing  the  restraints  of  institutions  originally 
established  on  authority,  it  should  rather  regard  these  as 
themselves  necessary  means  to  the  realization  of  inner 
freedom ;  but  it  should  do  away  with  their  externality, 
rigidity,  and  incapacity  for  growth. 

But  now  the  value  of  the  Middle  Ages  began  to  show. 
In  order  that  this  new  spirit  of  freedom  and  individuality 
should  get  a  foothold,  there  must  first  be  a  negative  move- 
as  i 


252        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

ment  to  clear  the  ground,  a  repudiation  of  authority  as 
mere  authority,  and  a  consequent  emphasis  on  an  abstract 
freedom,  which  might  easily  lend  itself  to  anarchy.  The 
same  situation  had  arisen  before,  in  the  Greek  Enlighten- 
ment at  the  time  of  the  Sophists ;  and  the  scepticism  and 
criticism  of  authority  then  had  meant  a  social  disintegra- 
tion fatal  to  Greek  life.  That  the  same  result  did  not  fol- 
low now,  was  due  in  considerable  part  to  the  thoroughness 
with  which  the  period  of  the  Middle  Ages  had  done  its 
work.  The  value  of  the  institutions  for  which  it  stood  had 
been  so  thoroughly  tested,  that  instead  of  crumbling  at 
once  before  hostile  criticism,  they  continued  to  exert  a 
power  over  the  practical  life  of  men.  Save  in  exceptional 
periods,  like  that  of  the  French  Revolution,  they  regulated 
and  restrained  the  spirit  of  change  in  a  way  to  prevent  any 
violent  catastrophe,  and  substituted  for  this  a  process  of 
gradual  modification  and  improvement.  Society,  accord- 
ingly, was  able  to  tide  over  the  intervening  period  of  nega- 
tion. It  could  hold  together  until,  when  the  non-essentials 
had  been  sifted  out,  the  more  positive  and  valuable  elements, 
that  for  the  time  had  been  confused  with  these,  could  be 
appreciated  in  turn,  and  utilized  in  the  interests  of  human 
advancement. 

The  history  of  modern  thought  is,  therefore,  in  brief,  the 
history  of  the  way  in  which  a  life  according  to  authority 
passes,  by  an  intermediate  period  of  protest  and  criticism, 
into  a  recognition  that  those  acts  and  institutions  which 
formerly  had  been  accepted  unreasoningly,  are  after  all  not 
inconsistent  with  the  freedom  which  is  now  demanded,  but  are 
rather  its  necessary  expression.  Freedom  is  not  opposed  to 
law,  but  is  the  self  working  in  accordance  with  the  law  of  its 
own  nature.  This  process  has,  in  the  past,  embodied  itself 
unconsciously  in  institutions  and  beliefs,  but  now  can  be 
made  conscious,  and  directed  in  the  interests  of  advance. 

It  is  about  the  social  life  of  man,  therefore,  that  the  great 
philosophical  movements  of  modern,  as  of  ancient  times, 
revolve;  and  they  express  themselves  primarily  in  the 


Modern  Philosophy  253 

new  emphasis  upon  individuality.  But  if  this  is  to  be 
firmly  grounded,  it  makes  necessary  also  a  development 
along  more  purely  theoretical  lines,  which  may  not  seem 
to  have  a  very  immediate  relation  to  social  questions  in  the 
narrow  sense.  It  is  only  as  man  understands  himself,  and 
the  world  in  which  he  lives,  that  he  can  move  effectively 
for  practical  freedom.  Intellectual  enfranchisement  is  an 
intimate  part  of  social  progress.  Apart,  then,  from  social 
philosophy  in  the  strict  sense,  the  more  technically  philo- 
sophical growth  will  lie  along  two  interconnected  lines, 
according  as  it  is  concerned  predominatingly  with  the  world 
of  external  nature,  or  with  the  spiritual  interests  of  man's 
conscious  life.  The  interaction  between  these  two  inter- 
ests continues  through  the  course  of  modern  thought ;  and 
it  is  the  attempted  combination  and  reconciliation  of  the 
motives  which  are  derived  from  each,  and  the  more  general 
relating  of  them  both  to  the  unitary  life  of  man  as  a  social 
being,  which  furnishes  the  main  problems  with  which 
modern  philosophy  is  engaged,  and  the  most  general  clew 
to  its  understanding. 

2.  It  has  already  been  said  that  the  peculiar  characteristic 
of  modern  thought  is  the  way  in  which  it  bases  itself  upon 
the  individual  man.  Its  watchword  is  progress,  and  it  is 
only  through  individual  initiative  that  conscious  progress 
can  take  place.  So  long  as  men  receive  their  principles 
from  external  authority,  these  stand  over  against  them  as 
an  unchangeable  and  absolute  ideal,  to  which  they  may  not 
set  themselves  in  opposition.  In  science,  this  individual- 
ism takes  the  form  of  free  investigation  and  experiment,  of 
direct  interrogation  of  nature,  influenced  by  traditional 
opinions.  In  the  world  of  human  life,  it  means  the  asser- 
tion of  the  right  of  private  judgment,  the  privilege  of 
criticising  all  the  dogmas  of  religion  and  political  authority, 
the  setting  up  of  the  individual  reason  as  the  final  court  of 
appeal.  The  first  phase,  then,  of  modern  thought,  is  a 
scientific  Rationalism  —  an  appeal  to  reason,  which  takes 
its  method  and  criterion  from  the  new  scientific  inquiry, 


254        A-   Students  History  of  Philosophy 

whose  remarkable  results  had  been  a  revelation  of  what 
the  mind  of  man  could  accomplish.  Accordingly,  from 
Descartes  to  Leibniz,  there  is  a  period  of  great  metaphysical 
systems,  having  a  close  connection  with  science,  and  show- 
ing a  firm  confidence  in  the  power  of  reason  to  discover 
the  ultimate  secrets  of  the  universe. 

3.  This  Rationalism,  however,  had  its  dangers.    In  the  re- 
action against  authority  and  the  past,  reason  came  to  mean 
a  rather  abstract  thing.    It  was  emphatically  the  individual 
reason,  testing  everything  by  certain  necessarily  abstract 
principles,   which   were   supposed    to   reveal   their   truth 
directly  to  the  individual,  in  his  isolation  from  the   life, 
experience,  and  institutions  of  the  race.     Accordingly,  it 
assumed  a  somewhat  hard  and  narrow  aspect.     The  histor- 
ical sense,  the  sense  of  perspective,  was  almost  entirely 
wanting.     With  no  regard  for  how  beliefs  and  institutions 
had  come  into  being,  or  what  in  their  historical  environ- 
ment  was   the   value   which    they    possessed,  men    were 
accustomed   to  judge   and  to    condemn,  often  in  a  very 
supercilious  and  shallow  fashion,  everything  that  did  not 
approve  itself  with  demonstrative  certainty  to  these  narrow 
and   abstract   principles  which  they  had   set   up  as    the 
ultimate   criterion.     Reason,  in   this   meaning,  inevitably 
separated  itself  from  other  aspects  of  the  human  spirit, 
and  became  actively  opposed  to  all  feelings,  aspirations, 
and  enthusiasms,  which  could  not  meet  its  narrow  tests. 
Hence  the  peculiarly  cold  and  unimaginative  type  which 
presents  itself  in  the  so-called   Enlightenment.     One   by 
one  the  graces  of  life  were  stripped  away.     The  so-called 
natural  religion  of  Deism  took  the  place  of  revealed  reli- 
gion, which  at  least  had  had  something  to  say  to  the  emo- 
tional nature  of  man.     God  was  pushed  farther  and  farther 
into  the  distance,  as  the  mere  starter  of  the  universal  ma- 
chine, to  be  pushed  out,  finally,  altogether. 

4.  But  the  process  did  not  stop  here.    After  being  used  as 
an  instrument  for  getting  rid  of  other  beliefs,  reason  began 
itself   to  be  called   in  question.     Ancient  scepticism  had 


Modern  Philosophy  255 

already  thrown  doubt  upon  its  principles,  and  this  scepti- 
cism had  been  revived  by  men  like  Montaigne  and  Pascal. 
One  great  fact,  however,  tended  to  prevent  such  an  atti- 
tude from  having  much  weight  —  the  evident  and  marvel- 
lous success  of  science.  So  long  as  men  were  actually 
showing  by  the  use  of  reason  what  undeniable  results  could 
be  obtained,  it  needed  more  than  a  mere  revival  of  discon- 
nected ancient  doubts  to  shake  the  hold  of  Rationalism. 
Meanwhile,  however,  a  more  original  and  more  profound 
movement  had  been  gaining  headway.  As  the  question  was 
at  last  forced  upon  philosophy  :  What  is  the  origin  and  sanc- 
tion of  these  metaphysical  principles  that  have  been  used 
so  freely  ?  the  current  of  thought  for  the  time  being 
changes  its  direction,  and  becomes  primarily  a  theory  of 
knowledge.  And  the  result  of  this  is  that  Rationalism  is 
gradually  undermined.  Locke,  the  Englishman,  institutes 
an  inquiry  into  the  origin  of  knowledge,  and,  true  to  the 
English  traditions  represented  in  Bacon,  he  finds  this  to  be 
wholly  empirical.  Experience  is  the  source  of  all  we 
know ;  the  innate  and  universal  ideas  of  reason,  on  which 
more  or  less  consciously  the  Rationalists  had  relied,  have 
no  existence.  But  if  this  is  true,  then,  sooner  or  later,  an 
absolute  science  must  follow  in  the  steps  of  dogmatic  reli- 
gion ;  one  is  as  little  to  be  demonstrated  as  the  other. 

5.  The  result  is  Scepticism,  and  this  result  is  reached  in 
Hume.  Along  this  line  it  was  impossible  to  go  any  farther ; 
and  had  there  been  nothing  to  supplement  it,  we  might  have 
had  again  the  spectacle  of  a  society  whose  whole  foundation 
was  brought  into  question.  But  meanwhile  still  another 
movement  was  preparing,  which  was  destined  to  give  a  new 
turn  to  the  thought  of  the  age.  In  a  sense,  Rousseau  may 
be  taken  as  the  precursor  of  this  movement.  Having  in  him- 
self many  of  the  faults  of  the  preceding  period,  he  yet  set 
himself  in  conscious  opposition  to  it,  by  an  emphasis,  one- 
sided indeed,  but  unavoidably  so,  on  those  facts  of  human 
life  which  Rationalism  had  neglected,  especially  the  fact  of 
feeling.  In  France,  the  negative  side  of  his  influence  pre- 


256         A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

dominated,  and  had  its  issue  in  the  Revolution.  But  in  Ger- 
many there  were  found  men  of  genius  who  were  prepared  to 
receive  from  him  a  more  positive  inspiration.  The  brilliant 
period  of  German  literature,  beginning  with  Lessing  and 
Herder,  seized  upon  the  vital  part  of  Rousseau,  but  supple- 
mented it  in  a  way  to  create  a  new  conception  of  life.  The 
thought  of  man  as  an  integral  part  of  the  life  of  the  world, 
instead  of  a  mere  separate  individual ;  of  God  as  an  imma- 
nent spirit,  rather  than  a  far-off  abstraction  ;  of  beliefs  and 
institutions  as  having  their  roots  in  history,  and  needing  to  be 
judged  in  their  concrete  settings;  of  this  historical  process  as 
necessary 'to  give  content  to  our  notion  of  the  world,  which 
cannot  be  built  up  by  mere  abstract  arguments ;  of  the 
value  of  art  and  religion,  and  the  whole  emotional  life,  as 
opposed  to  the  deification  of  the  abstract  reason  —  all  these 
things  were  brought  in  to  vitalize  and  renew  philosophy. 
Put  in  philosophical  form,  they  constitute  the  chief  signifi- 
cance of  the  series  of  great  names  from  Kant  to  Hegel, 
which  makes  this  period  of  German  thought  one  of  the 
most  illustrious  in  the  history  of  the  world. 

6.  Finally,  German  Idealism  needed  in  turn  to  be  supple- 
mented. Concerned  with  the  spiritual  facts  of  experience 
most  of  all,  it  ran  the  risk  of  paying  too  exclusive  attention 
to  these,  and  of  neglecting  the  equally  insistent  facts  of 
the  independently  existing  external  world.  To  this  lack 
another  great  scientific  epoch,  whose  most  important  prod- 
uct is  the  theory  of  Evolution,  called  attention  almost  in 
our  own  day.  With  the  reconciliation  of  these  two  contri- 
butions, the  work  of  the  present  is  largely  occupied. 

With  this  brief  and  abstract  statement  of  the  general 
course  of  modern  thought,  we  may  turn  to  a  more  detailed 
account. 


SYSTEMS  OF  RATIONALISM 

§  28.    Descartes.      The  Cartesian  School 

I.  The  Method  of  Philosophy.  —  It  is  with  Descartes 
(1596-1650)  that  modern  philosophy  is  generally  regarded 
as  beginning.  There  were  several  things  which  helped  to 
give  his  philosophical  doctrine  this  importance.  In  the  first 
place,  it  was  based  upon  a  definite  method,  and  this  method 
—  the  mathematical  —  was  a  clear  recognition  of  the  sci- 
entific spirit.  That  a  new  method  was  needed  in  philos- 
ophy was  generally  recognized,  and  men  stood  ready  to 
hail  it  when  it  should  appear.  Descartes,  moreover,  en- 
joyed the  advantage  of  being  himself  a  mathematician  of  the 
highest  order,  who  came  to  his  philosophy  after  a  practical 
demonstration  of  the  triumphs  which  he  could  win  in  a  nar- 
rower field.  Again,  the  modern  principle  of  individuality 
and  subjectivity  was  recognized  by  Descartes.  The  exist- 
ence of  the  self  forms  the  basis  of  all  his  constructive  efforts  ; 
and  the  test  of  truth,  again,  is  the  clearness  with  which  it 
justifies  itself  to  the  individual  reason,  by  which  all  the 
authority  of  tradition  has  been  rejected.  Finally,  Descartes' 
dualism,  his  clear  distinction  between  mind  and  body,  with 
their  different  and  irreconcilable  attributes  of  thought  and 
extension,  was  the  necessary  starting-point  for  a  fruitful 
development.  By  this  separation,  the  purely  mechanical 
nature  of  physical  processes  was  vindicated  ;  and  at  the 
same  time  the  existence  was  shown  of  a  wider  problem 
than  the  merely  scientific.  By  the  fact  of  setting  up  an 
immaterial  reality  alongside  the  material  world,  the  need 
for  some  means  of  connecting  the  two  was  forced  into 
notice.  It  is  true  that  the  violence  of  the  separation 
3  257 


258         A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

itself  gave  rise  to  difficulties ;  but  until  the  two  distinct 
motives  which  are  represented  in  matter,  and  in  mind  or 
spirit,  were  sharply  set  apart,  the  attitude  toward  the 
philosophical  problem  must  necessarily  be  confused. 

The  interest  of  Descartes'  life  lies  in  the  story  of  his 
mental  history.  He  came  from  a  well-to-do  family,  and 
possessed  through  life  an  independent  fortune,  so  that  he 
was  able  to  devote  himself  to  the  things  that  appealed 
most  strongly  to  him.  Educated  in  the  Jesuit  school  of 
La  Fleche,  and  led  to  believe  that  a  clear  and  certain 
knowledge  of  all  that  was  useful  in  life  might  be  acquired 
by  education,  he  had  an  extreme  desire  for  learning.  But 
his  course  of  study  completed,  he  found  himself  compelled 
to  change  his  opinion.  "  For  I  found  myself  involved  in 
so  many  doubts  and  errors,  that  it  seemed  to  me  that  I  had 
derived  no  other  advantage  from  my  endeavors  to  instruct 
myself,  but  only  to  find  out  more  and  more  how  ignorant 
I  was.  And  yet  I  was  in  one  of  the  most  celebrated 
schools  in  Europe,  where  I  thought  there  must  be  learned 
men  if  there  were  any  such  in  the  world.  Moreover,  I 
knew  what  others  thought  about  me,  and  I  did  not  per- 
ceive that  they  considered  me  inferior  to  my  fellow-students, 
albeit  there  were  among  them  some  who  were  destined  to 
fill  the  places  of  our  masters." 

He  began  to  doubt,  therefore,  whether  there  existed  in  the 
world  any  such  wisdom  as  he  had  been  led  to  hope  for, 
although  he  did  not  cease  to  think  well  of  some  of  the 
scholastic  pursuits,  if  followed  with  discretion.  Language 
and  history,  which  bring  us  into  contact  with  men  of  other 
times,  are,  like  travelling,  of  great  value.  "  It  is  well  to 
know  something  of  the  manners  of  foreign  peoples,  in 
order  that  we  may  judge  our  own  more  wisely.  But  if 
one  spends  too  much  time  in  travelling  in  foreign  coun- 
tries, he  becomes  at  last  a  stranger  in  his  own  ;  and  when 
one  is  too  curious  to  know  what  has  been  done  in  past 
ages,  he  is  liable  to  remain  ignorant  of  what  is  going  on  in 
his  own  time."  Eloquence,  again,  and  poetry  he  held  in 


Systems  of  Rationalism  259 

high  esteem,  but  he  regarded  both  as  the  gifts  of  genius, 
rather  than  the  fruit  of  study. 

"Above  all  I  was  delighted  with  the  mathematics,  on 
account  of  the  certainty  and  evidence  of  their  demonstra- 
tions ;  but  I  had  not  as  yet  found  out  their  true  use,  and 
although  I  supposed  that  they  were  of  service  only  in  the 
mechanic  arts,  I  was  surprised  that  upon  foundations  so  solid 
and  stable  no  loftier  structure  had  been  raised  ;  while,  on  the 
other  hand,  I  compared  the  writings  of  the  ancient  moralists 
to  palaces  very  proud  and  very  magnificent,  but  which  are 
built  on  nothing  but  sand  or  mud.  I  revered  our  theology, 
and,  as  much  as  any  one,  I  strove  to  gain  heaven  ;  but  when 
I  learned,  as  an  assured  fact,  that  the  way  is  open  no  less 
to  the  most  ignorant  than  to  the  most  learned,  and  that 
the  revealed  truths  which  conduct  us  thither  lie  beyond 
the  reach  of  our  intelligence,  I  did  not  presume  to  submit 
them  to  the  feebleness  of  my  reasonings,  and  I  thought 
that  to  undertake  the  examination  of  them,  and  succeed 
in  the  attempt,  required  extraordinary  divine  assistance, 
and  more  than  human  gifts.  I  had  nothing  to  say  of 
philosophy,  save  that,  seeing  it  had  been  cultivated  by  the 
best  minds  for  many  ages,  and  still  there  was  nothing  in  it 
which  might  not  be  brought  into  dispute,  and  which  was, 
therefore,  not  free  from  doubt,  I  had  not  the  presumption 
to  hope  for  better  success  therein  than  others ;  and  con- 
sidering how  many  diverse  opinions  may  be  held  upon  the 
same  subject  and  defended  by  the  learned,  while  not  more 
than  one  of  them  can  be  true,  I  regarded  as  pretty  nearly 
false  all  that  was  merely  probable.  Then,  as  to  the  other 
sciences  which  derive  their  principles  from  philosophy,  I 
judged  that  nothing  solid  could  be  built  upon  foundations 
so  unstable.  .  .  .  And  finally,  as  for  the  pseudo-sciences, 
I  thought  I  was  already  sufficiently  acquainted  with  their 
value  to  be  proof  against  the  promises  of  the  alchemist, 
the  predictions  of  the  astrologer,  the  impostures  of  the 
magician,  the  artifices  and  vain  boasting  of  those  who 
profess  to  know  more  than  they  actually  do  know. 


260        A  Siudenfs  History  of  Philosophy 

"  For  these  reasons,  so  soon  as  I  was  old  enough  to  be 
no  longer  subject  to  the  control  of  my  teachers,  I 
abandoned  literary  pursuits  altogether,  and,  being  re- 
solved to  seek  no  other  knowledge  than  that  which  I 
was  able  to  find  within  myself,  or  in  the  great  book  of  the 
world,  I  spent  the  remainder  of  my  youth  in  travelling, 
in  seeing  courts  and  armies,  in  mingling  with  people  of 
various  dispositions  and  conditions  in  life,  in  collecting  a 
variety  of  experiences,  putting  myself  to  the  proof  in  the 
crises  of  fortune,  and  reflecting  on  all  occasions  on  what- 
ever might  present  itself,  so  as  to  derive  from  it  what 
profit  I  might.  ...  It  is  true  that,  while  I  was  employed 
only  in  observing  the  manners  of  foreigners,  I  found  very 
little  to  establish  my  mind,  and  saw  as  much  diversity 
here  as  I  had  seen  before  in  the  opinions  of  philosophers. 
So  that  the  principal  benefit  I  derived  from  it  was  that, 
observing  many  things  which,  although  they  appear  to  us 
to  be  very  extravagant  and  ridiculous,  are  yet  commonly 
received  and  approved  by  other  great  peoples,  I  gradually 
became  emancipated  from  many  errors  which  tend  to 
obscure  the  natural  light  within  us,  and  make  us  less 
capable  of  listening  to  reason.  But  after  I  had  spent 
some  years  thus  in  studying  in  the  book  of  the  world,  and 
trying  to  gain  some  experience,  I  formed  one  day  the 
resolution  to  study  within  myself,  and  to  devote  all  the 
powers  of  my  mind  to  choosing  the  paths  which  I  must 
thereafter  follow  —  a  project  attended  with  much  greater 
success,  as  I  think,  than  it  would  have  been  had  I  never 
left  my  country  nor  my  books."  1 

"  I  was  then  in  Germany,  whither  the  wars,  which  were 
not  yet  ended  there,  had  summoned  me ;  and  when  I  was 
returning  to  the  army,  from  the  coronation  of  the  emperor, 
the  coming  on  of  winter  detained  me  in  a  quarter  where, 
finding  no  one  I  wished  to  talk  with,  and  fortunately  having 
no  cares  nor  passions  to  trouble  me,  I  spent  the  whole  day 
shut  up  in  a  room  heated  by  a  stove,  where  I  had  all  the 

1  Discourse  upon  Method,  Part  I.    Torrey's  translation.    (Henry  Holt  &  Co.) 


Systems  of  Rationalism  261 

leisure  I  desired  to  hold  converse  with  my  own  thoughts. 
One  of  the  first  thoughts  to  occur  to  me  was,  that  there  is 
often  less  completeness  in  works  made  up  of  many  parts 
and  by  the  hands  of  different  masters,  than  in  those  upon 
which  only  one  has  labored.  .  .  .  And  so  I  thought  that 
the  sciences  contained  in  books,  at  least  those  in  which 
the  proofs  were  merely  probable  and  not  demonstrations, 
being  the  gradual  accumulation  of  opinions  of  many  differ- 
ent persons,  by  no  means  come  so  near  the  truth  as  the 
plain  reasoning  of  a  man  of  good  sense  in  regard  to  the 
matters  which  present  themselves  to  him.  And  I  thought 
still  further  that,  because  we  have  all  been  children  before 
we  were  men,  and  for  a  long  time  of  necessity  were  under 
the  control  of  our  inclinations  and  our  tutors,  who  were 
often  of  different  minds,  and  none  of  whom,  perhaps, 
gave  us  the  best  of  counsels,  it  is  almost  impossible  that 
our  judgments  should  be  as  free  from  error  and  as  solid 
as  they  would  have  been  if  we  had  had  the  entire  use  of 
our  reason  from  the  moment  of  our  birth,  and  had  always 
been  guided  by  that  alone.  .  .  As  for  all  the  opinions  which 
I  had  accepted  up  to  that  time,  I  was  persuaded  that  I 
could  do  no  better  than  get  rid  of  them  at  once,  in  order 
to  replace  them  afterward  with  better,  ones,  or,  perhaps, 
with  the  same,  if  I  should  succeed  in  making  them  square 
with  reason.  And  I  firmly  believed  that  in  this  way  I 
should  have  much  greater  success  in  the  conduct  of  my 
life,  than  if  I  should  build  only  on  the  old  foundations, 
and  should  rely  only  on  the  principles  which  I  had  allowed 
myself  to  be  persuaded  of  in  my  youth,  without  ever  hav- 
ing examined  whether  they  were  true."  * 

In  a  word,  then,  what  Descartes  resolved  to  do  was 
to  strip  himself  completely  of  all  that  he  had  formerly 
believed,  and  start  de  novo,  with  the  intention  of  admitting 
only  that  which  was  absolutely  certain,  in  order  to  see  if 
on  this  basis  a  system  of  philosophy  might  not  be  erected 
which  should  escape  the  uncertainties  of  the  old.  To  do 

1  Discourse  upon  Method,  Part  II. 


262         A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

this  he  required  a  definite  method  of  work ;  and  as  the 
old  logic  was  unsuitable  for  the  discovery  of  new  truth,  he 
drew  up  a  code  of  rules  for  himself.  "  The  first  rule  was, 
never  to  receive  anything  as  a  truth  which  I  did  not  clearly 
know  to  be  such  ;  that  is,  to  avoid  haste  and  prejudice, 
and  not  to  comprehend  anything  more  in  my  judgments 
than  that  which  should  present  itself  so  clearly  and  so 
distinctly  to  my  mind  that  I  should  have  no  occasion  to 
entertain  a  doubt  of  it.  The  second  rule  was,  to  divide 
every  difficulty  which  I  should  examine  into  as  many  parts 
as  possible,  or  as  might  be  required  for  solving  it.  The 
third  rule  was,  to  conduct  my  thoughts  in  an  orderly  man- 
ner, beginning  with  objects  the  most  simple  and  the  easiest 
to  understand,  in  order  to  ascend  as  it  were  by  steps  to 
the  knowledge  of  the  most  composite,  assuming  some 
order  to  exist  even  in  things  which  did  not  appear  to  be 
naturally  connected.  The  last  rule  was,  to  make  enumera- 
tions so  complete,  and  reviews  so  comprehensive,  that  I 
should  be  certain  of  omitting  nothing."  1 

The  basis  and  suggestion  of  these  rules  of  Descartes  is 
mathematical  reasoning.  Briefly,  the  two  steps  involved 
are  intuition  and  deduction  —  the  only  two  ways  open  to 
man  for  attaining  a  certain  knowledge  of  truth.  By  intui- 
tion is  meant  the  immediate  self-evidence  with  which  a 
truth  forces  itself  upon  us,  "  the  conception  of  an  attentive 
mind  so  distinct  and  so  clear  that  no  doubt  remains  to  it 
with  regard  to  that  which  we  comprehend."  Most  of  our 
ideas  are  confused  and  obscure,  because  we  try  to  take  in 
too  much  at  once.  He  who  is  bent  on  taking  in  too  many 
things  at  one  look  sees  nothing  distinctly  ;  in  the  same 
way,  he  who  in  one  act  of  thought  would  attend  to  many 
objects,  confuses  his  mind.  The  first  thing  to  do,  therefore, 
is  to  analyze  out  from  our  habitual  thinking  those  clear  and 
axiomatic  principles  whose  certainty  cannot  be  doubted. 
These  clear  axioms  are  what  Descartes  calls  innate 
ideas.  As  they  are  necessary  to  give  us  any  starting- 

l  Discourse  upon  Method,  Part  II,  (Torrey's  translation,  p.  46). 


Systems  of  Rationalism  263 

point  for  our  demonstration,  and  as  they  cannot  be  the 
result  of  empirical  experience,  since  in  that  case  they 
would  not  be  certain  and  universal,  they  must  represent 
primitive  germs  of  truth  which  nature  has  planted  in  the 
human  intellect,  and  which  the  mind  is  capable  of  finding 
clearly  within  itself  when  it  goes  to  work  the  right  way.  To 
this  criterion  of  clearness,  the  objection  may  be  made  that 
all  ideas  which  we  believe  to  be  true  seem  clear  to  us. 
"This  way  of  speaking,"  says  Hobbes,  "is  metaphorical, 
and  therefore  not  fitted  for  an  argument ;  for  whenever  a 
man  feels  no  doubt  at  all,  he  will  pretend  to  this  clearness, 
and  he  will  be  as  ready  to  affirm  that  of  which  he  feels  no 
doubt,  as  the  man  who  possesses  perfect  knowledge.  This 
clearness  may  very  well  then  be  the  reason  why  a  man 
holds  and  defends  with  obstinacy  some  opinion,  but  it 
cannot  tell  him  with  certainty  that  the  opinion  is  true." 
Descartes  tries  to  parry  this  objection  by  drawing  a  distinc- 
tion between  a  natural  inclination  impelling  me  to  believe  a 
thing  that  nevertheless  may  be  false,  and  a  natural  light 
which  makes  me  know  that  it  is  true.  But  now  to  intui- 
tion is  to  be  added  also  deduction — the  process  by  which, 
through  a  series  of  steps  each  intuitively  certain,  we  are  able 
to  reach  new  conclusions.  Two  ideas  whose  connection  is 
not  immediately  self-evident  are  shown  to  be  connected 
through  this  string  of  intermediate  intuitions  ;  and  if  each 
step  is  in  reality  seen  as  we  take  it  to  be  necessary, 
the  result  has  an  equal  certainty,  and  it  too  is  an  innate 
idea. 

Now  of  all  human  knowledge,  mathematics  is  the  clear- 
est, and  furnishes  the  most  self-evident  axioms.  Descartes, 
therefore,  will  begin  with  mathematics,  and  by  accustoming 
his  mind  to  nourish  itself  upon  truths,  and  not  to  be  satis- 
fied with  false  reasons,  he  will  get  himself  in  readiness  for 
more  ambitious  efforts.  So  successful  was  this  endeavor, 
that  in  the  course  of  a  few  months  he  found  himself  with 
a  mastery  over  his  science,  and  an  ability  to  advance  to  new 
truths  in  it,  which  surprised  and  delighted  him.  Thinking, 


264        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

however,  that  it  needed  a  riper  age  than  his  present 
twenty-three  years,  before  he  should  be  capable  of  dealing 
with  fundamental  questions,  he  postponed  the  considera- 
tion of  these  until  he  should  have  gained  a  sufficient  disci- 
pline. 

2.  The  Existence  and  Nature  of  tJte  Self.  —  At  length, 
considering  that  his  capacities  are  now  matured,  he  sits 
down  to  the  serious  task  of  ridding  himself  of  all  the 
false  opinions  he  has  hitherto  received,  in  order  to  begin 
entirely  anew  from  the  foundation.  Now,  "  all  that  I 
have  hitherto  received  as  most  true  and  assured  I  have 
learned  from  the  senses,  or  by  means  of  the  senses.  But 
I  have  sometimes  found  that  these  senses  were  deceivers, 
and  it  is  the  part  of  prudence  never  to  trust  entirely 
those  who  have  once  deceived  us.  But  although  the 
senses  may  deceive  us  sometimes  in  regard  to  things 
which  are  scarcely  perceptible  and  very  distant,  yet  there 
are  many  other  things  of  which  we  cannot  entertain  a 
reasonable  doubt,  although  we  know  them  by  means  of 
the  senses ;  for  example,  that  I  am  here,  seated  by  the  fire, 
in  my  dressing  gown,  holding  this  paper  in  my  hands,  and 
other  things  of  such  a  nature.  And  how  can  I  deny  that 
these  hands  and  this  body  are  mine  ?  Only  by  imitating 
those  crazy  people,  whose  brains  are  so  disturbed  and  con- 
fused by  the  black  vapors  of  the  bile,  that  they  constantly 
affirm  that  they  are  kings,  while  in  fact  they  are  very  poor ; 
that  they  are  clothed  in  gold  and  purple,  while  they  are 
quite  naked  ;  or  who  imagine  themselves  to  be  pitchers,  or 
to  have  glass  bodies.  But  what !  These  are  fools,  and  I 
should  be  no  less  extravagant  if  I  should  follow  their 
example.  Nevertheless,  I  have  to  consider  that  I  am  a 
man,  and  that  I  fall  asleep,  and  in  my  dreams  imagine  the 
same  things,  or  even  sometimes  things  less  probable  than 
these  crazy  people  do  while  they  are  awake."  It  seems 
to  me  now,  indeed,  that  my  present  state  is  different  from 
dreaming.  But  then  I  remember  that  I  have  often  had  a 
similar  illusion  while  asleep,  so  that  there  seems  to  be  no 


Systems  of  Rationalism  265 

certain  mark  by  which  the  waking  can  be  distinguished 
from  the  sleeping  state. 

"  Let  us,  then,  suppose  that  we  are  asleep,  and  that  all 
those  particular  events  —  that  we  open  our  eyes,  shake  our 
heads,  stretch  out  our  hands,  and  such  like  things  —  are 
only  false  illusions ;  and  let  us  think  that  perhaps  neither 
our  hands  nor  our  entire  bodies  are  such  as  we  perceive 
them.  Nevertheless,  we  must  at  least  admit  that  the 
things  which  we  imagine  in  sleep  are  like  pictures  and 
paintings,  which  can  only  be  formed  after  the  likeness 
of  something  real  and  veritable.  Accordingly,  these  things 
in  general  —  namely,  eyes,  head,  hands,  body  —  are  not 
imaginary,  but  real  and  existent."  At  least  the  simple  ele- 
ments of  which  they  are  made  up  must  be  real,  —  corporeal 
being  in  general  and  its  extension,  the  figure  of  things  ex- 
tended, their  quantity  or  size,  their  number,  and  the  like. 
Even  if  the  compositions  are  illusions,  and  the  sciences 
which  deal  with  them  false,  yet  how  can  I  doubt  those  ele- 
mental truths  of  which,  e.g.,  arithmetic  and  geometry  treat — 
that  two  and  three  make  five,  or  that  a  square  always  has 
four  sides  ? 

"  Nevertheless,  I  have  long  cherished  the  belief  that 
there  is  a  God  who  can  do  everything,  and  by  whom  I 
was  made  and  created  such  as  I  am.  But  how  do  I  know 
that  he  has  not  caused  that  there  should  be  no  earth,  no 
heavens,  no  extended  body,  no  figure,  no  size,  no  place,  and 
that,  nevertheless,  I  should  have  perceptions  of  all  these 
things,  and  that  everything  should  seem  to  me  to  exist  not 
otherwise  than  as  I  perceive  it?  And  even  in  like  manner  as 
I  judge  that  others  deceive  themselves  in  matters  that  they 
know  best,  how  do  I  know  that  he  has  not  caused  that  I  de- 
ceive myself  every  time  that  I  add  two  to  three,  or  number 
the  sides  of  a  square,  or  judge  of  anything  still  more  simple, 
if  anything  more  simple  can  be  imagined  ? "  He  certainly 
does  permit  me  to  deceive  myself  at  times  ;  why  may  I  not 
always  be  deceived  ?  "  I  shall  suppose,  then,  not  that  God, 
who  is  very  good,  and  the  sovereign  source  of  truth,  but 


266        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

that  a  certain  evil  genius,  no  less  wily  and  deceitful  than 
powerful,  has  employed  all  his  ingenuity  to  deceive  me. 
I  shall  think  that  the  heavens,  the  air,  the  earth,  colors, 
figures,  sounds,  and  all  other  external  things,  are  nothing 
but  illusions  and  idle  fancies,  which  he  employs  to  impose 
upon  my  credulity.  I  shall  consider  myself  as  having  no 
hands,  no  eyes,  no  flesh,  no  blood,  as  having  no  senses,  but 
as  believing  falsely  that  I  possess  all  these  things.  I  shall 
obstinately  adhere  to  this  opinion  ;  and  if  by  this  means  it 
will  not  be  in  my  power  to  arrive  at  the  knowledge  of  any 
truth,  at  all  events  it  is  in  my  power  to  suspend  my  judg- 
ment." 1 

"  I  make  the  supposition,  then,  that  all  things  which 
I  see  are  false ;  I  persuade  myself  that  nothing  has  ever 
existed  of  all  that  my  memory,  filled  with  illusions,  has 
represented  to  me ;  I  consider  that  I  have  no  senses  ;  I 
assume  that  body,  figure,  extension,  motion,  and  place 
are  only  fictions  of  my  mind.  What  is  there,  then,  which 
can  be  held  to  be  true  ?  Perhaps  nothing  at  all,  except  the 
statement  that  there  is  nothing  at  all  that  is  true.  But  how 
do  I  know  that  there  is  not  something  different  from  those 
things  which  I  have  just  pronounced  uncertain,  concern- 
ing which  there  cannot  be  entertained  the  least  doubt  ?  Is 
there  not  some  God,  or  some  other  power,  who  puts  these 
thoughts  into  my  mind  ?  That  is  not  necessary,  for  perhaps 
I  am  capable  of  producing  them  of  myself.  Myself,  then ! 
at  the  very  least  am  I  not  something  ? 

"  But  I  have  already  denied  that  I  have  any  senses  or 
any  body ;  nevertheless  I  hesitate,  for  what  follows  from 
that  ?  Am  I  so  dependent  upon  the  body  and  the  senses 
that  I  cannot  exist  without  them  ?  But  I  have  persuaded 
myself  that  there  is  nothing  at  all  in  the  world,  that  there 
are  no  heavens,  no  earth,  no  minds,  no  bodies ;  am  I  then 
also  persuaded  that  I  am  not  ?  Far  from  it !  Without  doubt 
I  exist,  if  I  am  persuaded,  or  solely  if  I  have  thought  any- 
thing whatever.  But  there  is  I  know  not  what  deceiver, 

1  Meditations,  I. 


Systems  of  Rationalism  267 

very  powerful,  very  crafty,  who  employs  all  his  cunning 
continually  to  delude  me.  There  is  still  no  doubt  that  I 
exist  if  he  deceives  me  ;  and  let  him  deceive  me  as  he  may, 
he  will  never  bring  it  about  that  I  shall  be  nothing,  so  long 
as  I  shall  think  something  exists.  Accordingly,  having 
considered  it  well,  and  carefully  examined  everything,  I 
am  obliged  to  conclude  and  to  hold  for  certain,  that  this 
proposition,  /  am,  I  exist,  is  necessarily  true,  every  time 
that  I  pronounce  it  or  conceive  it  in  my  mind." 

The  foundation  of  Descartes'  philosophy,  that  through 
which  he  is  to  secure  a  firm  foothold,  is  thus  the  existence 
of  the  self —  an  existence  which  is  in  no  wise  to  be  doubted, 
since  even  in  this  doubt  the  self  appears.  But  now  what 
is  the  nature  of  the  self  whose  existence  is  so  certain  ?  I 
am  accustomed  to  think  of  myself  as  made  up  of  a  body 
and  a  mind.  As  for  my  body,  I  commonly  suppose  I 
know  what  that  is  —  it  is  something  that  possesses  shape, 
can  fill  space  so  as  to  exclude  other  bodies,  and  can  have 
sensations  from  outer  impressions.  But  none  of  these 
attributes  pertain  to  that  self  which  is  a  necessity  of 
thought.  Suppose  I  admit  the  possibility  of  an  evil  genius 
who  deceives  me  :  then  every  one  of  these  bodily  attributes 
may  be  open  to  doubt.  If  now  I  turn  to  the  soul,  is  there 
anything  here  which  belongs  to  me  intrinsically  ?  Yes, 
there  is  the  attribute  of  thought.  So  long  as  I  think,  so 
long  certainly  I  exist,  although,  so  far  as  I  can  see,  I 
might  immediately  cease  to  exist  if  once  I  were  to  stop 
thinking.  "  I  am,  then,  to  speak  with  precision,  a  thing 
which  thinks,  that  is  to  say,  a  mind,  an  understanding,  or 
a  reason  —  terms  the  significance  of  which  was  unknown 
to  me  before. 

"  But  I  am  a  truly  existing  thing ;  but  what  thing  ?  I 
have  said,  a  thing  which  thinks ;  and  what  more  ?  I  stir 
up  my  imagination  to  see  whether  I  am  not  still  something 
in  addition.  I  am  not  this  collection  of  members  which  is 
called  the  human  body ;  I  am  not  a  thin  and  penetrating 
vapor  diffused  throughout  these  members  ;  I  am  not  a 


268        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

wind,  a  breath,  a  vapor ;  nor  anything  at  all  of  all  that  I 
am  able  to  picture  or  imagine  myself  to  be,  since  I  have 
assumed  that  all  that  is  nothing  at  all,  and  that  without 
changing  this  assumption  I  find  that  I  do  not  cease  to  be 
certain  that  I  am  something. 

"  But  what  is  it,  then,  that  I  am  ?  A  thing  which  thinks. 
What  is  a  thing  which  thinks  ?  It  is  a  thing  which  doubts, 
which  understands,  which  conceives,  which  affirms,  which 
denies,  which  wills,  which  wills  not,  which  imagines  also,  and 
which  perceives.  Surely,  it  is  no  small  matter  if  all  these 
things  belong  to  my  nature.  But  why  do  they  not  belong 
to  it?  Am  I  not  that  even  which  now  doubts  almost  every- 
thing ;  which  nevertheless  understands  and  conceives  cer- 
tain things ;  which  is  assured  and  affirms  these  only  to  be 
true,  and  denies  the  rest ;  which  wills  and  desires  to  know 
more ;  which  wills  not  to  be  deceived ;  which  imagines 
many  things,  even  sometimes  in  spite  of  myself;  and 
which  also  perceives  many,  as  if  by  the  interposition  of 
bodily  organs?  Is  there  nothing  of  all  that  which  is  as 
true  as  it  is  certain  that  I  am,  and  that  I  exist,  even  al- 
though I  were  always  sleeping,  and  he  who  gave  me  my 
being  were  using  all  his  skill  to  deceive  me?  Is  there  also 
any  of  these  attributes  which  can  be  distinguished  from 
my  thoughts,  or  which  can  be  said  to  be  separate  from  my- 
self ?  For  it  is  so  evident  of  itself  that  it  is  I  who  doubt, 
who  understand,  and  who  desire,  that  there  is  no  need  here 
of  adding  anything  to  explain  it.  And  I  also  certainly 
have  the  power  of  imagining ;  for,  although  it  might  hap- 
pen (as  I  have  already  supposed)  that  the  things  which  I 
have  imagined  were  not  true,  nevertheless  this  power  of 
imagining  does  not  cease  really  to  exist  in  me,  and  to  form 
part  of  my  thought. 

"  Finally,  I  am  the  same  being  which  perceives,  that  is, 
which  has  the  knowledge  of  certain  things  as  if  by  the  or- 
gans of  sense,  since  in  reality  I  see  light,  I  hear  noise,  I 
feel  warmth.  But  I  have  been  told  that  these  appearances 
are  false,  and  that  I  am  asleep.  Granted ;  nevertheless,  at 


Systems  of  Rationalism  269 

least,  it  is  very  certain  that  it  appears  to  me  that  I  see 
light,  that  I  hear  noise,  and  that  I  feel  warmth ;  and  it  is 
just  that  which  in  me  I  call  perceiving;  and  that,  precisely, 
is  nothing  else  than  thinking.  From  this  point  I  begin  to 
know  what  I  am  with  more  clearness  and  distinctness  than 
heretofore."  1 

The  basis,  then,  on  which  Descartes  builds,  is  the  un- 
deniableness  of  consciousness.  This  alone  it  is  impossible 
to  doubt ;  this  alone  comes  home  to  me  as  a  directly  felt 
experience,  whose  reality  depends,  not  on  an  inference,  but 
on  the  immediate  fact  of  its  being  experienced.  I  may  be 
mistaken  about  the  object  of  my  thought,  but  that  casts  no 
shade  of  doubt  upon  the  thought  itself,  and  the  immaterial 
'  I '  who  thinks.  I  am,  it  is  true,  accustomed  to  suppose 
that  things,  bodies,  are  the  one  undeniable  fact,  and  to 
overlook  the  thought  by  which  these  things  are  known.  I 
see,  e.g.,  a  piece  of  wax  before  me;  can  anything  be  more 
certain  than  this  ?  "  What,  then  !  I  who  appear  to  conceive 
of  this  piece  of  wax  with  so  much  clearness  and  distinct- 
ness, do  I  not  know  myself  not  only  with  much  more  truth 
and  certainty,  but  even  with  much  more  distinctness  and 
clearness!  For  if  I  judge  that  the  wax  is  or  exists,  from 
the  fact  that  I  see  it,  certainly  it  follows  much  more  evi- 
dently that  I  am,  or  that  I  exist  myself,  from  the  fact  that 
I  see  it,  for  it  may  be  that  what  I  see  is  not  in  reality  wax ; 
it  may  also  be  that  I  have  not  eyes  even  to  see  anything ; 
but  it  cannot  be  that  while  I  see,  or  —  what  I  do  not  dis- 
tinguish therefrom  —  while  I  think  I  see,  I  who  think  am 
not  something." 

Cogito,  ergo  sum  —  here  is  the  one  certain  fact  from 
which,  as  an  axiom,  we  are  to  start,  in  order  to  get  back 
again,  with  a  new  certainty,  the  wider  reality  which  provi- 
sionally we  have  doubted.  And  the  test  has  also  been 
given  by  which  the  validity  of  these  new  truths  is  to  be 
measured.  If  they  can  approve  themselves  to  us  with  the 
same  clearness  and  certainty  that  goes  with  the  perception 

1  Meditations,  II. 


2jo        A  Students  History  of  Philosophy 

of  our  own  existence,  we  may  take  them  as  demonstrated. 
What  now  is  the  process  by  which  we  are  to  make  our 
way  back  to  the  world  again  ? 

3.  The  Existence  of  God  and  of  the  World. — The 
first  step  is  the  proof  for  the  existence  of  God.  This 
proof  takes  in  Descartes  more  shapes  than  one,  but  it  is 
sufficient  here  to  state  it  in  the  simplest  form.  We  find 
a  great  number  of  ideas  in  the  mind.  Some  of  these 
it  seems  to  us  come  from  our  own  nature,  others  from 
an  external  compulsion,  while  others,  again,  we  regard 
as  mere  fictions,  which  the  mind  has  put  together  of  its  own 
invention.  But  what  evidence  is  there  that  anything 
exists  outside  our  minds  to  correspond  to  these  ideas? 
We  have,  it  is  true,  a  natural  compulsion  to  believe  that 
some  of  them  actually  exist  in  the  outer  world.  But  such  a 
compulsion  proves  nothing  philosophically.  We  have  found 
that  many  of  our  ideas  do  so  fail  to  correspond  with  their 
supposed  objects,  and  why  may  this  not  conceivably  be  true 
of  the  others  ?  If,  then,  their  external  archetype  is  not  ca- 
pable of  being  proved,  is  there  any  way  in  which  we  can  be 
certain  that  reality  exists  at  all  beyond  our  own  thoughts  ? 

This  certainty,  according  to  Descartes,  can  be  reached 
through  the  medium  of  the  principle  of  causality.  It  is 
a  thing  manifest  and  self-evident,  by  the  same  natural 
light  which  assured  us  of  the  existence  of  the  self,  that 
there  must  be  in  every  cause  at  least  as  much  reality  as 
reveals  itself  in  the  effect.  Otherwise,  we  should  have  a 
portion  of  the  effect  arising  out  of  nothing.  If,  therefore, 
in  my  mind  there  exists  any  single  idea  which  evidently 
is  too  great  to  have  originated  from  my  own  nature,  then 
I  can  be  sure  that  outside  of  me  there  is  a  cause  commen- 
surate to  this  idea.  For  the  most  part,  I  discover  nothing 
in  my  ideas  which  thus  evidently  requires  something  more 
than  my  own  nature  to  produce  it.  But  to  this  there  is 
one  exception.  I  find  in  myself  an  idea  of  God,  as  a  sub- 
stance infinite,  eternal,  immutable,  independent,  omniscient, 
omnipotent,  by  which  myself  and  all  other  things  have 


Systems  of  Rationalism  271 

been  created  and  produced.  Is  it  conceivable  that  attri- 
butes so  great  and  so  exalted  ever  should  have  come  from 
the  imperfect  and  finite  nature  which  I  know  my  own  to 
be  ?  Furthermore,  my  nature  cannot  have  been  derived 
ultimately  from  my  parents,  or  from  any  other  cause  that 
falls  short  of  the  perfection  of  this  idea  which  is  a  part  of 
me.  Accordingly,  I  have  bridged  the  gulf  between  my- 
self and  external  reality ;  the  real  existence  of  God  Him- 
self must  be  postulated,  as  the  only  being  great  enough 
to  account  for  the  presence  in  me  of  this  idea  of  God, 
which  indubitably  exists.  The  idea  must  have  been  im- 
planted in  my  mind  at  birth,  as  a  mark  of  the  divine 
workmanship. 

And  now  with  the  self  and  God  established,  the  re- 
mainder is  easy.  We  were  prevented  from  resting  in  our 
natural  conviction  that  a  material  world  exists  beyond  us,  by 
the  final  doubt  whether  a  malignant  power  might  not  pur- 
posely be  deceiving  us.  But  the  act  of  deception  necessarily 
grows  out  of  some  defect,  and  cannot  be  attributed  to  the 
God  whose  perfection  we  have  established.  Accordingly, 
this  doubt  must  now  be  put  aside,  and,  in  so  far  as  it  is 
clearly  conceived,  the  reality  of  matter  must  be  admitted, 
else  God  would  be  responsible  for  making  us  believe  a  lie. 

4.  The  Nature  of  Matter,  —  Such,  in  brief,  was  the 
metaphysics  by  which  Descartes  supposed  that,  with  the 
same  certainty  and  clearness  that  are  found  in  a  geomet- 
rical proof,  the  essential  features  of  a  world  philosophy 
were  to  be  established.  It  will  be  evident  on  considera- 
tion that  the  process  of  proof  contains  various  assump- 
tions, which  Descartes  did  not  clearly  bring  into  view, 
and  which  might  be  questioned  much  more  easily  than  he 
thought  possible.  But  whether  we  consider  his  reasoning 
valid  or  not,  there  are  two  things  at  any  rate  which  he 
had  accomplished.  He  had  set  up  the  ideal  of  a  method 
which,  in  intention  at  least,  discarded  all  assumptions  based 
on  authority,  and  thus  had  broken  free  from  Scholasticism. 
And  he  had  also  marked  out  the  main  distinctions  which  it 


272         A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

is  the  task  of  philosophy  to  reconcile,  with  a  clearness  and 
a  precision  which  had  never  been  attained  before.  In  so 
doing  he  opened  up  a  new  set  of  problems,  that  were  to 
occupy  the  succeeding  period. 

The  main  point  about  which  this  development  centres 
is  the  sharp  distinction  which  Descartes  draws  between 
mind  and  matter  —  the  two  substances  into  which  the 
world  of  experience  is  divided.  The  nature  of  mind,  or 
soul,  has  already  been  considered ;  it  is  a  thing  which 
thinks.  However  we  may  regard  the  adequacy  of  this 
term  to  express  the  essential  character  of  the  soul,  at  least 
it  emphasizes  the  entirely  immaterial  nature  of  conscious- 
ness, and  makes  it  possible  for  exact  thinking  to  avoid  that 
confusion  of  the  conscious  life  with  the  outer  world,  which 
lies  at  the  bottom  of  the  obscure  hylozoism  of  earlier  philoso- 
phers, and  the  conscious  materialism  of  more  modern  times. 
When  we  come,  however,  to  inquire  more  closely  into  the 
corresponding  attribute  of  matter,  a  difficulty  arises.  The 
matter  which  the  common  man  knows,  and  which  he  feels 
a  natural  compulsion  to  believe  in,  is  matter  as  he  sees, 
and  hears,  and  touches,  and  tastes  it,  —  extended,  colored, 
sonorous.  But  some  of  these  qualities,  as,  e.g.,  color,  taste, 
and  sound,  science  tells  us  are  not  original,  but  are  effects 
upon  us  which  have  no  counterpart  in  the  thing  itself ; 
and  it  is  upon  science  that  Descartes  is  building.  Very 
well  then ;  but  we  have  found  it  possible  to  demonstrate 
the  existence  of  matter  at  all,  only  by  means  of  the  veracity 
of  God ;  and  if  some  of  the  qualities  which  God  has  led  us 
to  believe  in  are  demonstrably  false,  is  not  our  whole  cause 
lost  therewith  ? 

Descartes  saves  himself  by  his  theory  of  truth  and  fal- 
sity. When  I  judge,  e.g.,  that  I  see  a  certain  red  object, 
there  are  two  elements  that  enter  in.  There  is,  first,  the 
fact  that  I  have  a  perception  of  red ;  and  this,  as  a  fact  of 
experience,  is  an  absolutely  certain  fact,  about  which  no 
doubt  whatever  is  possible.  But  I  may  also  go  beyond 
this,  and  draw  the  inference  that  this  red  is  the  counterpart 


Systems  of  Rationalism  273 

of  a  real  quality  out  in  space.  But  while  I  may  be  inclined 
to  draw  this  inference,  I  do  not  need  to  do  so ;  it  is  a  mat- 
ter of  choice  on  my  part,  or  of  will.  False  judgments,  then, 
are  due  to  the  fact  that  I  go  beyond  the  certain  knowledge 
which  I  have,  and  draw  inferences  that  are  not  warranted  ; 
and  for  this  I  am  responsible,  not  God.  If  God  chooses  to 
give  us  a  knowledge  which  is  less  than  perfect,  it  is  nothing 
of  which  we  can  complain.  And  if,  again,  he  has  given 
us  a  power  of  willing  which  is  unlimited,  and  so  goes  beyond 
our  knowledge,  that  also  is  no  hardship.  He  would  only 
be  deceiving  us,  if  that  were  false  which  we  see  clearly  and 
distinctly  to  be  true.  This  is  the  criterion  by  which  we  are 
to  distinguish  between  what  we  commonly,  but  erroneously, 
regard  as  the  qualities  of  matter,  and  those  qualities  which 
really  belong  to  it.  We  are  to  resist  the  unthinking  inclina- 
tion to  judge  hastily,  and  withhold  our  assent  until  the  truth 
approves  itself  to  us  clearly  and  axiomatically. 

In  this  way  we  shall  find,  so  Descartes  thinks,  that  ex- 
tension^  is  the  only  quality  that  can  be  conceived  clearly. 
That  extension  can  be  so  conceived,  is  evident  from  the 
fact  that  it  is  extension  to  which  the  truths  of  geometry, 
the  clearest  of  all  the  sciences,  apply.  The  other  qualities, 
on  the  contrary,  so  Descartes  thinks,  involve  no  such  self- 
evident  intuitions.  They  are  like  the  sensation  of  hunger, 
which  furnishes  no  knowledge,  but  only  serves  a  utilitarian 
purpose,  by  giving  us  a  warning  with  reference  to  bodily 
needs.  The  essence  of  matter,  consequently,  is  extension. 
It  is  infinite,  and  infinitely  divisible ;  this  last  point  in- 
volves a  denial  of  the  theory  of  atoms.  Again,  since 
space,  as  extension,  is  an  attribute  of  matter,  there  is  no 
such  thing  as  empty  space.  By  identifying  matter  with 
extension  Descartes  is  compelled,  also,  to  regard  it 
as  entirely  passive ;  and  so  in  order  to  get  a  foundation 
for  science  he  has  to  introduce  from  the  outside  a  new 
conception  —  that  of  motion  —  whose  place  in  his  meta- 
physics is  accordingly  somewhat  anomalous.  Through 
these  two  conceptions — matter  and  motion — the  entire  natu- 


274        -A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

ral  world  is  to  be  explained  as  a  necessary  and  mechanical 
system. 

5.  The  Relation  of  Mind  and  Body.  —  But  the  very 
clearness  of  Descartes'  conception  was  the  means  of  giv- 
ing rise  to  a  problem  which  from  this  time  on  becomes 
an  insistent  one.  If  mind  and  matter  are  so  abso- 
lutely and  totally  different  in  their  nature,  how  can  they 
come  together  to  form  a  single  world  ?  How  are  they  to 
react  upon  and  affect  each  other,  as  apparently  they  do  ? 
The  larger  aspects  of  this  problem  did  not  at  once  present 
themselves,  but  the  beginning  of  the  later  development  is 
found  in  a  point  which  became  for  Descartes  himself  a 
matter  of  considerable  importance.  It  is  in  connection  with 
the  human  organism  that  matter  and  mind  come  into  closest 
contact.  Now  as  the  body  is  a  part  of  the  material  world, 
its  actions  would  logically  come  under  the  same  mechanical 
and  mathematical  laws  that  govern  other  things  ;  and  this 
is  the  direction  in  which  Descartes  is  almost  irresistibly 
led.  It  is  shown  clearly  in  his  famous  doctrine  of  the  au- 
tomatism of  brutes.  "  The  greatest  of  all  the  prejudices  we 
have  retained  from  infancy  is  that  of  believing  that  brutes 
think.  The  source  of  our  error  comes  from  having  observed 
that  many  of  the  bodily  members  of  brutes  are  not  very  dif- 
ferent from  our  own  in  shape  and  movements,  and  from 
the  belief  that  our  mind  is  the  principle  of  the  motions 
which  occur  in  us ;  that  it  imparts  motion  to  the  body,  and 
is  the  cause  of  our  thoughts.  Assuming  this,  we  find  no 
difficulty  in  believing  that  there  is  in  brutes  a  mind  similar 
to  our  own ;  but  having  made  the  discovery,  after  thinking 
well  upon  it,  that  two  different  principles  of  our  movements 
are  to  be  distinguished, — the  one  entirely  mechanical  and 
corporeal,  which  depends  solely  on  the  force  of  the  animal 
spirits,  and  the  configuration  of  the  bodily  parts,  and  which 
may  be  called  corporeal  soul,  and  the  other  incorporeal,  that 
is  to  say,  mind  or  soul,  which  you  may  define  as  a  substance 
which  thinks,  —  I  have  inquired  with  great  care  whether 
the  motions  of  animals  proceed  from  these  two  principles, 


Systems  of  Rationalism  275 

or  from  one  alone.  Now,  having  clearly  perceived  that 
they  can  proceed  from  one  only,  I  have  held  it  demon- 
strated that  we  are  not  able  in  any  manner  to  prove  that 
there  is  in  the  animals  a  soul  which  thinks.  I  am  not  at 
all  disturbed  in  my  opinion  by  those  doublings  and  cun- 
ning tricks  of  dogs  and  foxes,  nor  by  all  those  things  which 
animals  do,  either  from  fear,  or  to  get  something  to  eat, 
or  just  for  sport.  I  engage  to  explain  all  that  very 
easily,  merely  by  the  conformation  of  the  parts  of  the 
animals."  * 

And  if  it  is  true  that  the  life  of  animals  can  be  explained 
without  reference  to  intelligence,  this  is  also  conceivable 
of  the  vast  majority  of  the  activities  of  men  as  well.  In 
the  Tract  on  Man,  Descartes  undertakes  to  show  how, 
assuming  the  body  to  be  nothing  but  a  statue  or  machine 
of  clay,  the  mere  mechanical  motion  of  parts  is  enough  to 
account  for  what  we  call  its  life ;  "  just  as  you  may  have 
seen  in  grottoes  and  fountains  in  the  royal  gardens,  that 
the  force  alone  with  which  the  water  moves,  in  passing 
from  the  spring,  is  enough  to  move  various  machines,  and 
even  to  make  them  play  on  instruments,  or  utter  words, 
according  to  the  different  arrangement  of  the  pipes  which 
conduct  it.  And,  indeed,  the  nerves  of  the  machine  that 
I  am  describing  to  you  may  very  well  be  compared  to  the 
pipes  of  the  machinery  of  these  fountains,  its  muscles  and 
its  tendons  to  various  other  engines  and  devices  which 
serve  to  move  them,  its  animal  spirits  to  the  water  which 
sets  them  in  motion,  of  which  the  heart  is  the  spring,  and 
the  cavities  of  the  brain  the  outlets.  Moreover,  respira- 
tion and  other  such  functions  as  are  natural  and  usual  to 
it,  and  which  depend  on  the  course  of  the  spirits,  are  like 
the  movements  of  a  clock  or  a  mill,  which  the  regular  flow 
of  the  water  can  keep  up.  External  objects,  which,  by 
their  presence  alone,  act  upon  the  organs  of  its  senses, 
and  which  by  this  means  determine  it  to  move  in  many 
different  ways  according  as  the  particles  of  its  brain  are 

1  Letter  to  Henry  More  (Torrey,  p.  284) . 


276         A  Students  History  of  Philosophy 

arranged,  are  like  visitors  who,  entering  some  of  the  grot- 
toes of  these  fountains,  bring  about  of  themselves,  without 
intending  it,  the  movements  which  occur  in  their  presence  ; 
for  they  cannot  enter  without  stepping  on  certain  tiles  of 
the  pavement,  so  arranged  that,  for  example,  if  they 
approach  a  Diana  taking  a  bath,  they  make  her  hide  in 
the  reeds  ;  and  if  they  pass  on  in  pursuit  of  her,  they  cause 
a  Neptune  to  appear  before  them,  who  menaces  them  with 
his  trident ;  or  if  they  turn  in  some  other  direction,  they 
will  make  a  marine  monster  come  out,  who  will  squirt 
water  into  their  faces,  or  something  similar  will  happen, 
according  to  the  fancy  of  the  engineers  who  construct 
them.  And  finally,  when  the  reasonable  soul  shall  be  in 
this  machine,  it  will  have  its  principal  seat  in  the  brain, 
and  it  will  be  there  like  the  fountain  maker,  who  must  be 
at  the  openings  where  all  the  pipes  of  these  machines  dis- 
charge themselves,  if  he  wishes  to  start,  to  stop,  or  to 
change  in  any  way  their  movements."  1 

The  last  words  of  the  quotation  just  given,  show  that 
Descartes  was  not  ready  to  carry  out  his  conception  to  the 
final  consequences.  That  would  have  been  to  deny  alto- 
gether the  influence  of  the  will  —  of  ourselves,  in  other 
words  —  upon  our  actions  ;  and  Descartes  was  not  prepared 
to  sacrifice  this  apparent  fact  to  suit  his  theory.  Accord- 
ingly, he  admits  that  while  our  more  habitual  and  reflex 
actions  are  due  to  mechanism  alone,  yet  it  also  is  possible 
for  the  mind  to  interfere,  and  alter  the  motions  of  the 
body.  The  seat  of  this  interaction  he  supposed  to  be  a 
part  of  the  brain  known  as  the  pineal  gland.  Here  the 
animals  spirits,  or  fine  particles  of  the  blood,  whose  en- 
trance into  the  various  nerves  determines  the  body  to  one 
action  or  another,  may  be  deflected  by  the  influence  of  the 
soul,  and  so  made  the  instrument  by  which  the  soul  moves 
the  body.  From  the  other  side,  this  relationship  of  mind 
and  body  gives  rise  to  a  distinction  between  two  classes  of 
conscious  facts.  As  the  activity  of  the  mind  wholly  by 

1  Tract  on  Man  (Torrey,  p.  278). 


Systems  of  Rationalism  277 

itself,  there  is  the  power  of  pure  thought.  This  the  mind 
possesses  in  its  own  right.  But  the  mind  is  also  influenced 
by  its  connection  with  the  body,  and  this  gives  rise  to 
certain  modes  of  consciousness  —  emotions,  sensations,  and 
the  like  —  which,  intellectually  at  least,  are  of  a  lower 
order.  For  Descartes,  as  for  most  of  the  ancients,  the  true 
type  of  life  is  the  intellectual  life. 

6.  The  Cartesians.  Occasionalism.  —  The  influence  which 
Descartes  exerted  was  immediate  and  profound.  By  his 
disciples,  his  words  were  taken  almost  as  those  of  one 
inspired.  In  Holland  a  school  of  enthusiastic  Cartesians 
sprang  up,  but  the  most  important  speculative  development 
was  in  France.  Here  a  number  of  famous  names,  notably 
those  of  Geulincx  and  Malebranche,  are  found  among  the 
thinkers  who  professed  themselves  Cartesians.  Only  one 
point  in  connection  with  these  men  will  be  mentioned  here. 

Descartes  had  admitted  the  fact  of  a  mutual  influence 
between  the  soul  and  the  body,  without  going  on  to 
explain  its  possibility.  With  this  his  followers  were  not 
wholly  satisfied.  The  main  difficulty  for  them  lay  in  the 
question  how,  if  matter  and  mind  are  so  absolutely  diverse 
in  nature,  there  can  be  any  such  thing  as  an  influence 
of  one  upon  the  other.  The  answer  given  by  Geulincx 
took  the  form  which  became  known  as  Occasionalism. 
The  difficulty  of  an  interaction  was  admitted,  but  it  was 
solved  by  falling  back  on  the  omnipotence  of  God.  It  is 
no  power  of  the  human  mind  that  effects  an  alteration  in 
the  physical  world,  but  a  direct  act  of  God.  A  particular 
exertion  of  the  will  does  not  move  the  human  body,  but  on 
occasion  of  this  act  of  will  God  intervenes,  and  changes 
the  direction  of  the  body  in  a  way  to  secure  the  same 
result.  There  is  thus  no  need  of  any  influence  passing 
between  the  two  unlike  substances. 

Occasionalism  proved  to  be  only  a  temporary  stopping- 
place  ;  it  did  not  reach  the  deeper  aspects  of  the  problem. 
But  already  it  showed  the  direction  in  which  the  logic  of 
Descartes'  standpoint  was  to  lead.  Descartes  had  left  the 


278        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

world  divided  into  three  constituent  parts  —  the  two  sub- 
stances, mind  and  matter,  and  a  third  more  ultimate 
reality,  God.  Now  it  was  by  appealing  to  this  last  reality 
that  the  division  could,  it  seemed,  most  naturally  be  over- 
come, if  the  distinction  which  Descartes  had  so  clearly 
drawn  was  not  again  to  be  confused.  Descartes,  indeed, 
had  recognized  this.  Denning  a  substance  as  that  which 
can  be  conceived  through  itself  alone,  he  had  seen  that 
after  all  mind  and  matter  are  no  true  substances,  since 
they  are  not  to  be  conceived  apart  from  God  ;  and  so  that 
in  the  strict  meaning  of  the  term  only  one  substance  —  God 
—  exists.  Consequently  Occasionalism  had  a  glimpse  of 
the  true  problem  when  it  fell  back  upon  an  appeal  to  God's 
power.  But  this  solution  remained  only  an  external  one ; 
the  way  to  a  more  intimate  connection  between  God  and 
the  world  was  brought  to  light  by  Spinoza. 


LITERATURE 

Descartes.  Chief  Works:  Discourse  upon  Method  (1637);  Medita- 
tions (1640);  Principia  Philosophic  (1644);  Emotions  of  the  Soul 
(1649).  Translations:  Veitch  {Method,  Meditations,  Selections  from 
the  Principles');  Lowndes  (Meditations);  Torrey  (Selections). 

Mahaffy,  Descartes. 

Fischer,  Descartes  and  his  School. 

Huxley,  Methods  and  Results. 

Caird,  Essays  on  Literature  and  Philosophy. 

Smith,  Studies  in  the  Cartesian  Philosophy. 

Iverach,  Descartes,  Spinoza,  and  the  New  Philosophy. 

Haldane,  Descartes,  His  Life  and  Times. 


§  29.    Spinoza 

Baruch  Spinoza  was  a  Portuguese  Jew,  born  in  1632  in 
Amsterdam,  where  his  parents  had  taken  refuge  from  per- 
secution. On  account  of  the  scandal  growing  out  of  his 
heretical  opinions,  he  was  excommunicated  from  the  syna- 
gogue, in  1656,  after  vain  efforts  to  bribe  him  to  maintain  at 


Systems  of  Rationalism  279 

least  an  outward  conformity.  So  bitter  were  the  feelings 
against  him  that  an  attempt  was  even  made  to  get  rid  of 
him  by  assassination.  His  opinions  were  hardly  less  objec- 
tionable to  Christians,  however,  than  to  Jews,  and  he  spent 
the  rest  of  his  days  apart  from  men  and  social  life,  supply- 
ing his  very  simple  wants  by  grinding  lenses,  for  which  he 
earned  a  wide  reputation.  His  profound  intellect  and  the 
beauty  of  his  character  attracted,  however,  a  few  friends 
and  disciples.  His  fame  gradually  extended,  and  he  was 
offered  at  one  time  the  chair  of  Philosophy  at  Heidelberg ; 
but  he  preferred  the  liberty  to  hold  without  restriction  his 
own  beliefs,  and  think  his  own  thoughts.  Money  possessed 
no  greater  attraction  for  him  than  fame  and  position.  The 
patrimony  of  which  his  sisters  had  attempted  to  deprive 
him,  he  voluntarily  relinquished,  after  first  securing  his 
title  to  it  by  a  legal  process.  He  refused  a  present  from 
the  French  king,  which  a  simple  dedication  would  have 
secured.  An  admirer,  Simon  de  Vries,  who  proposed  to 
leave  Spinoza  his  property,  was  dissuaded  by  him  in  favor 
of  the  natural  heir ;  and  when  the  latter,  after  De  Vries' 
death,  fixed  a  pension  which  had  been  willed  to  Spinoza  at 
five  hundred  florins,  he  declared  the  sum  too  great,  and 
refused  to  take  more  than  three  hundred.  His  own  death 
occurred  in  1677. 

It  is  not  easy  to  give  a  brief  account  of  Spinoza's  phi- 
losophy that  shall  at  once  be  intelligible,  and  do  justice  to 
its  inner  spirit.  Couched  as  it  is  in  abstract  and  scholastic 
terms,  and  given  the  form  of  rigid  mathematical  demon- 
stration, an  understanding  of  the  chain  of  close  reasoning 
which  constitutes  his  system  calls  for  a  somewhat  tech- 
nical acquaintance  with  metaphysics.  Furthermore,  the 
acknowledged  inconsistencies  in  Spinoza's  thought  render 
a  systematic  exposition  complicated.  Without  attempting 
this,  accordingly,  it  will  be  enough  to  suggest  in  a  more 
general  way  what  it  is  that  Spinoza,  in  his  philosophy,  is 
trying  to  accomplish. 

The  estimates  of  Spinoza  have  been  somewhat  startling 


280        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

in  their  divergence.  For  the  most  part,  he  has  been  exe- 
crated, by  Jew  and  Christian  alike,  as  an  atheist  and  a  foe 
to  religion.  And  yet,  by  others,  his  philosophy  has  been 
thought  to  be  so  fundamentally  religious,  that  Novalis  gave 
to  him  the  name  "  God-intoxicated."  Both  these  judgments 
stand  for  factors  in  his  thought  that  are  necessary  for  its 
proper  understanding.  From  the  standpoint  of  orthodox 
theology,  there  is  no  doubt  that  Spinoza  is  irreligious.  He 
denies  outright  the  personal  God  of  the  Christian,  the 
government  of  the  world  according  to  purpose,  and  the 
freedom  of  the  will.  It  is  often  difficult  to  distinguish  his 
theory  from  a  thoroughgoing  naturalism,  which  identifies 
God  with  the  necessary  laws  of  the  physical  universe. 
But,  on  the  other  hand,  Spinoza  evidently  supposes  that 
he  is  vindicating  the  only  worthy  idea  of  religion  ;  and  he 
opposes  the  ordinary  conceptions  as  themselves,  in  reality, 
irreligious.  God  is  the  beginning  and  the  end  of  his  phi- 
losophy. This  philosophy  is  not,  in  the  last  analysis, 
merely  theoretical,  in  spite  of  its  abstractness.  As  the 
title  —  Ethica  —  of  his  most  important  book  implies,  it  is 
practical,  a  philosophy  of  life  and  of  redemption. 

The  central  idea  of  Spinoza,  and  that  which  gave  him 
his  deep  influence  somewhat  later  on,  when  the  period  of 
the  Enlightenment  was  drawing  to  a  close,  is  his  recognition 
of  the  unity  of  things ;  and  that  not  only  as  an  intellectual 
necessity,  but  as  a  requirement  of  feeling,  a  religious  re- 
quirement, as  well.  Descartes  had  split  the  world  up  into 
two  substances  distinct  from  each  other,  and  a  God  sepa- 
rate from  both  of  them.  The  Rationalism  which  took  its 
rise  from  him,  tended  still  further  to  remove  God  from  the 
world,  until  he  became  a  mere  far-away  observer,  with 
scarcely  any  relation  to  his  work.  Such  a  separation  was 
fatal  in  two  ways.  It  emptied  the  idea  of  God,  on  the 
one  hand,  of  all  content,  and  so  made  him  superfluous; 
and  it  rendered  it  impossible  to  give  any  ultimate  and  uni- 
tary explanation  of  the  world  of  things.  In  opposition  to 
this,  it  was  Spinoza's  task  to  insist  upon  the  connection  of 


Systems  of  Rationalism  281 

God  with  the  world,  and  to  find  in  him  the  ultimate  reality, 
alongside  which  the  independent  reality  of  other  so-called 
substances  fades  into  nothingness. 

This,  then,  is  the  starting-point  of  Spinoza's  thought  — 
the  perception  of  the  unreality  of  finite  things.  Man 
begins  by  taking  the  world  as  a  collection  of  independent 
persons  and  objects,  each  complete  in  itself  and  real  in 
itself.  But  he  soon  discovers  the  futility  of  this.  Intel- 
lectually, he  cannot  stop  with  any  object  by  itself.  He 
finds  he  is  unable  to  understand  it  apart  from  its  connec- 
tions with  other  things  ;  and  he  thus  is  led  continually 
on  from  one  relationship  to  another,  in  an  endless  series. 
Nor,  emotionally,  can  he  rest  his  affections  on  the  chang- 
ing facts  of  the  finite  world.  They  are  ever  leaving  him 
disappointed  and  disillusioned,  and  he  craves  some  perma- 
nent and  perfect  object  to  satisfy  his  ideal.  "  After  expe- 
rience had  taught  me,"  Spinoza  says,  in  a  passage  which 
describes  how  he  was  led  to  philosophy,  "  that  all  the  usual 
surroundings  of  social  life  are  vain  and  futile,  seeing  that 
none  of  the  objects  of  my  fears  contained  in  themselves 
anything  either  good  or  bad,  except  in  so  far  as  the  mind 
is  affected  by  them,  I  finally  resolved  to  inquire  whether 
there  might  be  some  real  good  having  power  to  communi- 
cate itself,  which  would  affect  the  mind  singly  to  the  ex- 
clusion of  all  else ;  whether  in  fact  there  might  be  anything 
of  which  the  discovery  and  attainment  would  enable  me 
to  enjoy  continuous,  supreme,  and  unending  happiness." 
Such  happiness,  he  saw  very  clearly,  neither  riches,  nor 
fame,  nor  pleasures  of  sense  could  give.  "  Further  reflec- 
tion convinced  me  that  if  I  could  really  get  to  the  root  of 
the  matter,  I  should  be  leaving  certain  evils  for  a  certain 
good.  I  thus  perceived  that  I  was  in  a  state  of  great  peril, 
and  I  compelled  myself  to  seek  with  all  my  strength  for  a 
remedy,  however  uncertain  it  might  be ;  as  a  rich  man 
struggling  with  a  deadly  disease,  when  he  sees  that  death 
will  surely  be  upon  him  unless  a  remedy  be  found,  is  com- 
pelled to  seek  such  a  remedy  with  all  his  strength,  inasmuch 


282         A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

as  his  whole  hope  lies  therein;  all  the  objects  pursued  by 
the  multitude  not  only  being  no  remedy  that  tends  to  pre- 
serve our  being,  but  even  act  as  hindrances,  causing  the 
death  not  seldom  of  those  who  possess  them,  and  always 
of  those  who  are  possessed  by  them.  All  these  evils  seem 
to  have  arisen  from  the  fact  that  happiness  or  unhappiness 
is  made  wholly  to  depend  on  the  quality  of  the  object 
which  we  love.  When  a  thing  is  not  loved,  no  quarrels 
will  arise  concerning  it,  no  sadness  will  be  felt  if  it  per- 
ishes, no  envy  if  it  is  possessed  by  another,  no  fear,  no 
hatred,  in  short,  no  disturbance  of  the  mind.  All  these 
arise  from  the  love  of  what  is  perishable,  such  as  the  ob- 
jects already  mentioned.  But  love  toward  a  thing  eternal 
and  infinite  fills  the  mind  wholly  with  joy,  and  is  itself 
unmingled  with  any  sadness ;  wherefore  it  is  greatly  to  be 
desired,  and  sought  for  with  all  our  strength."  1 

What  is  the  end  of  philosophy  then  ?  It  is  the  practical 
end  of  escaping  from  the  fleeting  show  which  the  phenom- 
enal world  presents,  since  this  gives  no  real  happiness ; 
and  of  finding  blessedness  by  identifying  ourselves  with 
that  true  reality  without  variableness  or  shadow  of  turning, 
which  alone  is  worthy  to  call  forth  our  love,  and  able  to 
satisfy  it.  And  this  which  alone  approves  itself  to  heart 
and  intellect  alike,  is  the  one  eternal  unity  of  the  universe, 
which  embraces  all  finite  facts  in  its  grasp,  and  gives  to 
them  whatever  reality  they  possess ;  in  religious  language, 
it  is  God.  Instead  of  God  being  a  hazardous  inference 
from  the  undoubted  reality  of  finite  things,  it  is  these  latter 
which  are  doubtful ;  it  is  their  insufficiency  which  leads  us 
necessarily  to  the  all-sufficient  whole  in  which  they  have 
their  being.  For  philosophy,  the  starting-point  is  not  from 
them,  but  from  the  one  reality  which  alone  is  absolutely 
certain,  and  from  which  they  are  themselves  to  be  deduced. 

Stated  in  this  general  way,  Spinoza's  aim,  on  the  theo- 
retical side,  is  that  which  every  philosophy,  which  is  not 
content  with  a  chaotic  atomism,  has  striven  to  accomplish. 

1  Improvement  of  the  Intellect.     (Elwes*  translation,  Vol.  II,  pp.  3-5.) 


Systems  of  Rationalism  283 

An  understanding  of  the  ultimate  unity  of  things  is,  in- 
deed, the  reason  for  philosophy's  existence.  It  remains 
to  ask  how  successfully  Spinoza  accomplishes  his  task. 
What  is  the  nature  of  the  connection  of  God  and  the  world 
with  which  he  leaves  us,  and  how  far  does  it  satisfy  alike 
the  head  and  the  heart  ?  w 

I.    Spinoza's  Metaphysics 

I.  Substance  and  Attributes.  —  And  first,  a  brief  state- 
ment of  the  intellectual  construction  of  the  world  which 
Spinoza  makes  the  basis  of  his  ethical  conclusions.  Every 
fact  that  can  exist  must  come  under  one  of  three  heads : 
it  is  a  substance,  or  an  attribute,  or  a  mode.  A  substance 
is  "  that  which  is  in  itself,  and  is  conceived  by  means  of 
itself,  that  is,  that  the  conception  of  which  does  not  need 
to  be  formed  from  the  conception  of  any  other  thing." 
An  attribute  is  "  that  which  the  understanding  perceives 
as  constituting  the  essence  of  substance."  A  mode  is  a 
"  modification  of  substance  :  in  other  words,  that  which  is 
in,  and  is  conceived  by  means  of,  something  else." *  The 
term  "  mode,"  to  put  it  more  simply,  stands  for  the  whole 
list  of  particular,  finite  facts,  that  made  up  our  world  — 
external  things,  and  inner  states  of  consciousness. 

But  now  Descartes  had  already  seen  that,  strictly 
speaking,  there  is  only  a  single  substance.  Matter  and 
mind  are  not  conceivable  in  themselves,  but  can  only  be 
understood  by  reference  to  God  ;  and  Spinoza,  accordingly, 
is  entirely  consistent  in  reducing  them,  from  substances, 
to  mere  attributes  of  the  one  substance,  God.  Reality, 
then,  is  one,  eternal,  infinite.  On  the  one  substance  all 
things  depend  —  attributes  as  its  eternal  essence,  finite 
things  as  the  modifications  of  these  attributes.  Just  as  in 
geometry  eternal  truths  about  spatial  relations  are  deduced 
from  self-evident  premises,  so  from  the  bare  definition  of 

1  Ethics,  Pt.  I.  Def.  This  and  the  following  quotations  are  from  Professor 
Fullerton's  translation.  (  The  Philosophy  of  Spinoza,  Henry  Holt  &  Co.) 


284        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

God  his  attributes  are  to  be  derived,  and  from  these,  other 
lesser  truths.  To  be  sure,  Spinoza  does  not  actually 
succeed  in  showing  how  these  deductions  from  the  defi- 
nition of  God  are  to  be  made ;  but  he  assumes  their 
possibility.  The  nature  of  the  real  connections  in  the 
world  is  not  that  of  cause  and  effect,  but  of  logical  de- 
pendence. 

Spinoza's  doctrine  of  substance  opens  up  to  him  a  new 
solution  of  the  problem  which  had  occupied  Descartes  and 
the  Cartesians  —  that  which  concerns  the  relation  of  mind 
and  body.  Of  the  infinite  number  of  attributes  which 
belong  to  the  nature  of  God,  we  know  only  these  two  — 
thought  and  extension.  Now  on  the  surface  these  seem 
clearly  to  be  connected  An  act  of  will  apparently  causes 
a  bodily  movement ;  an  external  impression  gives  rise  to 
a  sensation  or  a  thought.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  there 
are  difficulties  in  understanding  this  interaction.  Des- 
cartes felt  these  difficulties,  and  they  led  him  to  his  belief 
in  the  automatism  of  brutes,  and  the  all  but  automatism 
even  of  human  beings.  We  cannot,  for  one  thing,  get 
any  clear  notion  of  how  one  substance  can  act  upon 
another  of  a  wholly  different  nature.  But  there  is  a  more 
formidable  difficulty  still.  If  we  follow  out  scientific 
method  with  entire  consistency,  we  are  forced  to  look  for 
the  same  physical  and  mechanical  explanation  for  our 
own  bodily  movements,  as  for  the  movements  of  lifeless 
things  ;  and  this  excludes  a  reference  to  acts  of  will,  which 
have  no  place  in  the  physical  world.  Occasionalism  might 
seem  to  obviate  the  first  difficulty,  but  it  hardly  touched 
the  second. 

Spinoza's  doctrine  of  substance  enabled  him  to  offer  a 
new  solution.  If  the  attributes  of  thought  and  extension 
are  not  two  separate  things,  but  only  aspects  of  one  and 
the  same  thing,  they  cannot  interfere  with  or  act  upon 
each  other ;  for  a  thing  cannot  interact  with  itself.  Never- 
theless, a  definite  relation  will  exist  between  them,  because 
it  is  the  same  substance  of  which  they  both  are  attributes. 


Systems  of  Rationalism  285 

That  which  in  one  light  appears  as  a  mode  of  extension 
or  physical  fact,  will  be,  in  another  light,  a  mode  of 
thought  or  fact  of  consciousness;  and  so  the  two  modes 
will  correspond,  and  a  complete  and  exact  parallelism  will 
hold  between  the  attributes,  without,  however,  there  being 
any  interaction. 

In  this  way  Spinoza  justifies  the  claim  of  science  to  give 
an  explanation  of  all  physical  events,  including  the  move- 
ments of  the  body,  in  purely  physical  terms.  For  each 
mode  of  thought,  a  mode  of  extension  will  exist.  But 
since  there  is  no  interaction,  thought  can  only  be  ex- 
plained by  reference  to  the  thought  series,  extension  by 
reference  to  other  modes  of  extension ;  never  the  one 
by  the  other.  "  A  mode  of  extension,  and  the  idea  of  that 
mode,  are  one  and  the  same  thing,  but  expressed  in  two 
ways:  a  truth  which  certain  of  the  Hebrews  appear 
to  have  seen  as  if  through  a  mist,  in  that  they  assert  that 
God,  the  intellect  of  God,  and  the  things  known  by  it, 
are  one  and  the  same.  For  example,  a  circle  existing 
in  nature,  and  the  idea,  which  also  is  in  God,  of  this  exist- 
ing circle,  are  one  and  the  same  thing,  manifested  through 
different  attributes ;  for  this  reason,  whether  we  con- 
ceive nature  under  the  attribute  of  extension  or  under 
that  of  thought,  we  shall  find  there  follows  one  and  the 
same  order,  or  one  and  the  same  concatenation  of  causes, 
that  is,  the  same  thing.  I  have  said  that  God  is  the 
cause  of  an  idea,  for  instance,  the  idea  of  a  circle, 
merely  in  so  far  as  he  is  a  thinking  thing,  and  of  the 
circle,  merely  in  so  far  as  he  is  an  extended  thing,  just 
for  the  reason  that  the  formal  being  of  the  idea  of  a 
circle  can  only  be  perceived  through  another  mode  of 
thinking  as  its  proximate  cause,  that  one  in  its  turn 
through  another,  and  so  to  infinity.  Thus,  whenever 
we  consider  things  as  modes  of  thinking,  we  must  explain 
the  whole  order  of  nature,  or  concatenation  of  causes, 
through  the  attribute  of  thought  alone ;  and  in  so  far 
as  we  consider  them  as  modes  of  extension,  we  must 


286        A  Students  History  of  Philosophy 

likewise  explain  the  whole  order  of  nature  solely  through 
the  attribute  of  extension."  1 

2.  The  Nature  of  God. —  So  much  for  a  general  state- 
ment. But  now  in  what  way  is  this  ultimate  substance  — 
God  —  to  be  conceived  ?  And  certainly  he  is  not  the  God 
of  popular  belief.  Can  he  be  thought  of  after  the  fashion 
of  a  man,  with  body,  and  mind,  and  the  passions  of  men  ? 
Surely  not.  Is  he  a  being  who  acts  according  to  ends 
beyond  himself?  "  I  confess  the  doctrine  which  subjects 
all  things  to  a  certain  arbitrary  fiat  of  God,  and  makes 
them  depend  upon  his  good  pleasure,  is  less  wide  of  the 
truth  than  that  of  those  who  maintain  that  God  does  all 
things  with  some  end  in  view.  The  latter  appear  to  affirm 
that  there  is  something  external  to  God,  and  independent 
of  him,  upon  which,  as  upon  a  pattern,  God  looks  when  he 
acts,  or  at  which  he  aims,  as  at  a  definite  goal.  This  is 
simply  subjecting  God  to  fate,  and  nothing  more  absurd 
than  this  can  be  maintained  concerning  God,  who  is  the 
first  and  only  free  cause,  as  well  of  the  essence  of  all  things 
as  of  their  existence."'2  Again,  this  doctrine  denies  God's 
perfection  ;  for  if  God  acts  with  an  end  in  view,  he  neces- 
sarily seeks  something  which  he  lacks.  "  Nor  must  I  here 
overlook  the  fact  that  the  adherents  of  this  doctrine,  who 
have  chosen  to  display  their  ingenuity  in  assigning  final 
causes  to  things,  have  employed  in  support  of  their  doctrine 
a  new  form  of  argument,  namely,  a  reduction,  not  ad  im- 
possibile,  but  ad  ignorantiam,  which  shows  that  there  was 
no  other  way  to  set  about  proving  this  doctrine.  If,  for 
example,  a  stone  has  fallen  from  a  roof  upon  some  one's 
head,  and  has  killed  him,  they  will  prove  as  follows  that  the 
stone  fell  for  the  purpose  of  killing  the  man.  If  it  did  not 
fall,  in  accordance  with  God's  will,  for  this  purpose,  how 
could  there  have  been  a  chance  occurrence  of  so  many  cir- 
cumstances ?  Perhaps  you  will  answer,  it  happened  because 
the  wind  blew,  and  the  man  had  an  errand  there.  But  they 
will  insist,  why  did  the  wind  blow  at  that  time  ?  and  why  did 
1  Pt.  II,  7.  Schol.  a  Pt.  I,  33,  Schol.  2. 


Systems  of  Rationalism  287 

that  man  have  an  errand  that  way  at  just  that  time?  .  .  . 
And  so  they  will  keep  on  asking  the  causes  of  causes, 
until  you  take  refuge  in  the  will  of  God,  that  asylum  of 
ignorance.  So,  again,  when  they  consider  the  structure 
of  the  human  body,  they  are  amazed,  and  because  they 
are  ignorant  of  the  causes  which  have  produced  such  a 
work  of  art,  they  infer  that  it  has  not  been  fashioned 
mechanically,  but  by  divine  or  supernatural  skill,  and  put 
together  in  such  a  way  that  one  part  does  not  injure 
another.  Hence  it  happens  that  he  who  seeks  for  the 
true  causes  of  miracles,  and  endeavors,  like  a  scholar,  to 
comprehend  the  things  in  nature,  and  not,  like  a  fool, 
to  wonder  at  them,  is  everywhere  regarded  and  pro- 
claimed as  a  heretic  and  an  impious  man  by  those  whom 
the  multitude  reverence  as  interpreters  of  nature  and  the 
gods."  * 

There  are,  then,  no  final  causes  in  nature.  Our  popular 
notions  are  due  to  a  wholly  unjustifiable  transference  of 
our  own  conditions  to  God.  Men  are  constituted  by 
nature  with  an  impulse  to  seek  their  own  advantage, 
and  they  do  everything  with  some  purpose  in  view  that 
has  reference  to  this.  "  Hence  it  happens  that  they  always 
desire  to  know  only  the  final  causes  of  actions,  and,  when 
they  have  learned  these,  are  satisfied.  But  if  they  cannot 
learn  these  from  some  one  else,  nothing  remains  for  them 
to  do  but  to  turn  to  themselves,  and  have  recourse  to  the 
ends  by  which  they  are  wont  to  be  determined  to  similar 
action ;  and  thus  they  necessarily  judge  another's  char- 
acter by  their  own.  Again,  since  they  find  in  themselves 
and  external  to  themselves  many  things  which,  as  means, 
are  of  no  small  assistance  in  obtaining  what  is  to  their 
advantage,  as,  for  example,  the  eyes  for  seeing,  the  teeth 
for  chewing,  plants  and  animals  for  food,  the  sun  for  giv- 
ing light,  the  sea  for  maintaining  fish,  and  so  on — this  has 
led  them  to  regard  all  the  things  in  nature  as  means  to 
their  advantage.  And  knowing  that  these  means  have 

1  Pt.  I,  Appendix. 


288        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

been  discovered,  not  provided,  by  themselves,  they  have 
made  this  a  reason  for  believing  that  there  is  some  one 
else  who  has  provided  these  things  for  their  use.  .  .  . 
Moreover,  as  they  had  never  had  any  information  con- 
cerning the  character  of  such  beings,  they  had  to  judge 
of  it  from  their  own.  Hence  they  maintained  that  the 
gods  direct  all  things  with  a  view  to  man's  advantage,  to 
lay  men  under  obligation  to  themselves,  and  to  be  held  by 
them  in  the  highest  honor ;  whence  it  has  come  to  pass 
that  each  one  has  thought  out  for  himself,  according  to 
his  disposition,  a  different  way  of  worshipping  God,  that 
God  might  love  him  above  others,  and  direct  all  nature 
to  the  service  of  his  blind  desire  and  insatiable  avarice. 
Thus  this  prejudice  has  become  a  superstition,  and  has 
taken  deep  root  in  men's  minds ;  and  this  has  been  the 
reason  why  every  one  has  applied  himself  with  the  great- 
est effort  to  comprehend  and  explain  the  final  causes  of  all 
things.  But  while  they  sought  to  prove  that  nature  does 
nothing  uselessly  (in  other  words,  nothing  that  is  not  to 
man's  advantage),  they  seemed  to  have  proved  only  that 
nature  and  gods  and  men  are  all  equally  mad.  Just  see 
how  far  the  thing  has  been  carried.  Among  all  the  useful 
things  in  nature  they  could  not  help  finding  a  few  harm- 
ful things,  as  tempests,  earthquakes,  diseases,  and  so  forth. 
They  maintain  that  these  occur  because  the  gods  were 
angry  on  account  of  injuries  done  them  by  men,  or  on 
account  of  faults  committed  in  their  worship.  And 
although  experience  daily  contradicted  this,  and  showed 
by  an  infinity  of  instances  that  good  and  evil  fall  to  the 
lot  of  the  pious  and  of  the  impious  indifferently,  that  did 
not  make  them  abandon  their  inveterate  prejudice ;  they 
found  it  easier  to  class  these  facts  with  other  unknown 
things  of  whose  use  they  were  ignorant,  and  thus  to  retain 
their  present  and  innate  condition  of  ignorance,  than  to 
destroy  the  whole  fabric  of  their  reasoning,  and  think  out 
a  new  one.  Hence,  they  assumed  that  the  judgments  of 
the  gods  very  far  surpass  man's  power  of  comprehension. 


Systems  of  Rationalism  289 

This  in  itself  would  have  been  sufficient  to  hide  the  truth 
forever  from  mankind,  had  not  mathematics,  which  is 
concerned,  not  with  final  causes,  but  with  the  essences 
and  properties  of  figures,  shown  men  a  different  standard 
of  truth."1 

It  is  from  these  prejudices  that  all  our  judgments  of 
worth  in  nature  have  sprung.  "  After  men  have  per- 
suaded themselves  that  everything  that  happens,  happens 
for  their  sake,  they  had  to  regard  that  quality  in  each 
thing  which  was  most  useful  to  them  as  the  most  impor- 
tant, and  to  rate  all  those  things  which  affected  them  the 
most  agreeably,  as  the  most  excellent.  Hence,  to  explain 
the  natures  of  things,  they  had  to  frame  the  notions  good, 
evil,  order,  confusion,  beauty,  and  deformity  ;  and  from  their 
belief  that  they  are  free  have  arisen  the  notions  of  praise  and 
blame,  and  sin  and  merit. .  .  .  They  have  called  good  every- 
thing which  conduces  to  health  and  to  the  worship  of  God, 
and  bad  everything  that  is  unfavorable  to  these."  In  re- 
ality, good  and  evil  indicate  no  positive  element  in  things, 
considered,  that  is  to  say,  in  themselves.  They  are  only 
modes  of  thinking,  or  subjective  notions.  One  and  the 
same  thing  can  be  at  the  same  time  good,  bad,  and 
indifferent.  For  example,  music  is  good  for  the  mel- 
ancholy man,  and  bad  for  him  who  mourns ;  while  for  the 
deaf  man  it  is  neither  good  nor  bad.  "  And  as  those  who 
do  not  understand  nature  make  no  affirmations  about 
things,  but  only  imagine  things,  and  take  imagination  for 
understanding,  in  their  ignorance  of  things  and  of  their 
nature  they  firmly  believe  that  there  is  order  in  things. 
For  when  things  are  so  arranged  that,  when  they  are  rep- 
resented to  us  through  the  senses,  we  can  easily  imagine 
them,  and  hence  can  easily  think  them  over,  we  call  them 
orderly  ;  if  the  opposite  be  true,  we  say  they  are  in  dis- 
order, or  are  confused.  And  since  those  things  we  can 
easily  imagine  are  more  pleasing  to  us  than  to  others, 
men  place  order  above  confusion,  —  as  though  order  had 

1  Pt.  I,  Appendix. 
U 


290        A  Students  History  of  Philosophy 

any  existence  in  nature  except  in  relation  to  our  imagina- 
tion, —  and  they  say  that  God  created  all  things  in  order, 
thus  unwittingly  ascribing  imagination  to  God.  ...  So  if 
the  motion  communicated  to  the  nerves  by  objects  repre- 
sented through  the  eyes  is  conducive  to  health,  the  objects 
which  cause  it  are  called  beautiful ;  those  objects,  on  the 
other  hand,  that  excite  a  contrary  motion,  are  called  ugly. 
Again,  those  that  move  the  sense  through  the  nostrils  are 
called  odoriferous  or  stinking:  those  that  move  it  through 
the  tongue,  sweet  or  bitter,  savory  or  unsavory,  and  so  on. 
Finally,  those  that  move  the  ears  are  said  to  give  forth 
noise,  sound  or  harmony  :  which  last  has  driven  men  so 
mad  that  they  believed  even  God  takes  delight  in  harmony. 
Nor  are  there  wanting  philosophers  who  have  persuaded 
themselves  that  the  motions  of  the  heavenly  bodies  com- 
pose a  harmony.  All  this  sufficiently  proves  that  every  one 
has  judged  of  things  according  to  the  condition  of  his 
brain,  or,  rather,  has  taken  the  affections  of  his  imagina- 
tion for  things.  Hence  it  is  not  surprising  that  so  many 
controversies  have  arisen  among  men,  as  we  find  to  be  the 
case,  and  that  from  these  scepticism  has  resulted.  For 
although  men's  bodies  are  in  many  respects  alike,  yet  they 
have  very  many  points  of  difference,  and,  therefore,  what 
seems  good  to  one  seems  bad  to  another ;  what  seems  or- 
derly to  one  seems  confused  to  another ;  what  is  pleasant 
to  one  is  unpleasant  to  another.  The  sayings:  'Many 
men,  many  minds ';  '  Every  man  is  satisfied  with  his 
own  opinion ' ;  '  Brains  differ  as  much  as  palates  '  — 
these  are  in  everybody's  mouth ;  and  they  sufficiently 
prove  that  men  judge  of  things  according  to  the  condition 
of  their  brains,  and  rather  imagine  things  than  comprehend 
them.  For  had  they  comprehended  things,  all  these  proofs 
would,  as  mathematics  bears  witness,  if  not  attract,  at  least 
convince  them." 1 

All  the  attributes  of  worth,  then,  which  we  are  accus- 
tomed to  apply  to  the  world,  have  no  real  existence.     All 

1  Pt.  I,  Appendix. 


Systems  of  Rationalism  291 

that  we  can  say  is,  that  things  are,  and  are  necessarily. 
God  did  not  create  them  for  a  purpose,  nor  could  he  have 
made  them  to  be  otherwise  than  we  actually  find  them. 
To  suppose  that  God  is  a  free  cause,  and  able  to  pre- 
vent the  things  which  follow  from  his  nature  from  coming 
to  pass,  is  the  same  as  saying  that  God  can  prevent  it  fol- 
lowing from  the  nature  of  a  triangle,  that  its  three  angles 
are  equal  to  two  right  angles.  We  cannot  ascribe  to  God 
will  or  intellect  at  all  in  the  human  meaning  of  the  words. 
"  If  intellect  or  will  do  belong  to  God's  eternal  essence, 
each  of  these  attributes  must  be  taken  in  a  sense  very  dif- 
ferent from  the  common  one.  For  there  would  have  to  be 
a  world-wide  difference  between  our  intellect  and  will,  and 
the  intellect  and  will  constituting  God's  essence,  nor 
could  they  agree  in  anything  except  the  name  ;  just  as  the 
Dog,  a  constellation,  agrees  with  dog,  an  animal  that 
barks."  * 

If  then,  God  has  neither  passions,  nor  purposes,  nor 
intellect,  nor  will,  nor  moral  worth,  what  content  are 
we  to  give  to  him  ?  At  times,  Spinoza  seems  clearly 
to  conceive  reality,  after  the  manner  of  the  scientist, 
as  a  great  system  of  natural  law.  It  is,  at  least,  the 
scientific  view  of  the  world  which  forms  the  positive 
basis  for  his  criticism  of  religion  and  teleology.  "  Science 
touched  with  emotion,"  therefore,  perhaps  comes  closest 
to  characterizing  the  more  positive  features  of  his 
whole  attitude.  But  is  even  this  ultimate  ?  Is  God  after 
all  in  his  truth  anything  more  than  bare  abstract  sub- 
stance, of  which  we  can  say  nothing  whatever  that  is 
definite  ? 

3.  God  and  the  Finite  World.  —  Such  a  question  brings 
out  the  special  difficulty  in  Spinoza's  philosophy.  There  is 
no  doubt  that  he  wants  to  get  a  substance  that  shall  find  a 
place  for,  and  give  an  explanation  to,  all  the  reality  of  the 
phenomenal  world.  Evidently  nothing  less  than  this  will 
be  sufficient.  The  phenomenal,  finite  world  is  that  from 
1  Pt.  1, 17,  Schol. 


292         A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

which  we  start.  Undeniably  it  has  some  reality,  even  if  its 
reality  is  imperfect  and  incomplete.  And  a  unity  which 
explains  it  must  include  in  itself  at  least  all  the  truth  that 
the  finite  world  possesses,  even  while  it  goes  beyond  and 
supplements  this  truth;  it  must  not  simply  ignore  finite 
things.  Now  Spinoza  might  have  retained  the  reality 
of  the  finite  by  making  God,  the  ultimate  substance, 
simply  the  aggregate  of  finite  facts;  but  he  saw  clearly 
that  this  would  not  serve  his  purpose.'  Such  a  unity 
would  be  only  a  fictitious  one,  and  would  kave  reality  after 
all  a  mere  heap  of  particulars.  But  how  to  get  any  other 
unity,  that  should  be  at  once  concrete,  doing  justice  to  the 
facts  of  experience,  and  yet  a  real  universal,  a  real  bond 
of  union,  was  a  problem  which  Spinoza  never  completely 
met. 

Accordingly,  while  the  true  aim  and  presupposition  of 
his  philosophy  is  to  find  reality  in  the  unchanging  rational 
laws  of  which  changing  events  in  the  natural  world  are 
the  expression,  and  through  which  they  are  to  be  under- 
stood, the  constant  tendency  in  Spinoza's  thinking  —  a 
tendency  increased  by  his  Scholastic  terminology  —  was  to 
get  away  from  the  concrete  altogether,  and  to  arrive  at 
his  more  general  and  ultimate  being  by  the  process  of  ab- 
straction. That  the  process  of  abstraction  does  not  lead  us 
to  concrete  reality,  he  was  well  aware.  He  recognizes  that 
the  abstract  man  is  not  more,  but  less,  real  than  particular 
men,  and  only  represents  the  fact  that  these  have  certain 
elements  in  common ;  the  ideal  of  the  universal  which  he 
has  before  him  is  rather  that  of  a  comprehensive  law.  But, 
for  all  that,  the  eternal  facets  which  he  identifies  with  real- 
ity tend  to  be,  in  so  far  as  he  can  make  them  clear  at  all, 
just  such  abstractions.  Substance,  or  God,  is  reached  by 
precisely  that  same  process  of  dropping  all  limitations  in 
the  way  of  determinate  qualities,  which  gives  us  the  ab- 
stract man.  The  consequence  is,  that  the  logical  deriva- 
tion of  less  ultimate  from  more  ultimate  reality  is  beyond 
his  reach.  To  juse  Hegel's  figure,  Spinoza's  Absolute  is 


Systems  of  Rationalism  293 

the  lion's  den  to  which  all  tracks  lead,  and  from  which 
none  return. 

And  even  if  Spinoza  had  been  always  true  to  his  ideal 
of  reality  as  law,  rather  than  mere  substance,  he  still  had 
an  unsolved  problem  in  the  fact  of  imperfection  and  con- 
tingency, for  which  his  rationalism  left  no  place.  By  the 
geometrical  method,  we  can  at  best  only  get  truths  which, 
though  derived,  are  as  absolute  and  as  eternal  as  the  God 
on  the  definition  of  whom  they  depend.  The  theorem  of 
geometry  is  as  true  and  adequate  as  the  axioms  on  which 
it  is  based.  But  what,  then,  of  the  inadequate  and  false 
ideas  which  are  represented  in  what  Spinoza  calls  modes  ? 
Whence  comes  our  phenomenal  knowledge  of  ourselves 
and  of  the  world  ?  Clearly  such  false  ideas  can  never  be 
derived  by  a  method  which  gives  only  truth.  Or,  to  put 
it  in  another  way,  our  inadequate  notions  of  the  world,  and 
the  modes  of  extension,  or  particular  changing  things, 
which  these  represent,  either  have  an  existence  or  they 
have  not.  If  they  have  an  existence,  they  are  a  part  of 
God,  since  nothing  exists  outside  of  him ;  and  then  how 
can  they  be  otherwise  than  as  they  are  for  God  —  eternal 
and  adequate  ?  Or,  if  they  have  no  existence  at  all,  how 
do  we  come  to  talk  about  them  as  if  they  did  exist  ?  The 
fact  is,  that  by  no  possibility  can  Spinoza  connect  the  world 
of  appearance,  of  finite  modes,  of  existence  in  time,  with 
the  true  and  eternal  (timeless)  reality  of  God,  and  of  those 
derivative  truths,  equally  eternal,  that  can  be  logically  de- 
duced from  Him.  And,  consequently,  he  leaves  the  finite 
world  without  explanation ;  it  is  a  mere  impertinence  in 
his  system.  Yet  it  is  precisely  to  explain  this  that  philos- 
ophy originates  ;  and,  apart  from  it,  reality  is  left  a  mere 
blank. 

It  will  not  be  necessary  to  dwell  upon  the  statements  by 
which  Spinoza  attempts,  verbally  at  least,  to  bridge  over 
the  gap  between  this  world  of  appearance,  and  the  world 
of  reality.  From  the  nature  of  the  case,  the  task  is  a 
hopeless  one.  Logically,  Spinoza  should  have  denied  the 


294        -^  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

former  world  altogether ;  but  the  facts  are  too  evident  to 
permit  of  this.  Indeed,  the  whole  purpose  of  his  philoso- 
phy is  just  to  show  how  man,  from  being  a  mere  part  of 
the  phenomenal  world,  can  escape  from  its  finiteness  and 
attain  true  felicity.  It  only  remains,  then,  to  consider  how 
this  practical  redemption  is  to  be  brought  about,  and  what, 
more  precisely,  is  the  bondage  from  which  we  are  to  be 
set  free.  .,/ 

2.    The  Doctrine  of  Salvation 

i.  Human  Bondage.  —  It  has  been  seen  that,  according 
to  Spinoza,  the  unsatisfactoriness  of  life  is  due  to  the  fact 
that  our  affections  are  set,  not  upon  an  object  that  is  eternal 
and  unchanging,  but  upon  transitory  and  imperfect  things. 
If  the  object  of  our  love  were  without  variableness,  it  would 
lay  to  rest  our  passions,  and  impart  to  life  something  of  its 
own  calm  and  steadfastness.  But  because  we  love  that 
which  has  no  constancy  and  no  true  reality,  we  are  in  a 
continual  turmoil  of  emotions ;  we  hate,  and  envy,  and 
fear,  are  exalted  and  depressed,  take  even  our  pleasures 
feverishly,  and  never  know  what  peace  is.  Subjection  to 
the  emotions,  then,  and  ignorance  of  our  true  end  —  the 
former  growing  out  of  the  latter  —  are  the  elements  which 
constitute  human  bondage. 

Now  the  further  justification  of  this  is  found  in  Spinoza's 
psychology  of  the  human  life.  The  essence  of  life  is  self- 
preservation —  the  tendency  of  each  individual  thing  to 
persevere  in  its  own  existence,  to  welcome  all  that  tends  to 
increase  this,  and  oppose  and  reject  whatever  tends  to  limit 
it  Here  again  Spinoza  accepts  a  fact  of  experience  for 
which  logically  his  system  has  no  place ;  for  if  individual 
things  have  no  reality  in  themselves,  any  such  self-asser- 
tive activity  would  seem  to  be  excluded.  When  this  act 
of  self-assertion  depends  wholly  on  ourselves,  we  have 
what  Spinoza  calls  an  action;  when  it  depends  in  part 
upon  what  lies  beyond  ourselves,  it  is  a  passion.  What, 
then,  is  the  basis  of  this  distinction  between  actions  and 


Systems  of  Rationalism  295 

passions  ?  What  actions  depend  wholly  on  ourselves,  and 
what  on  other  beings  ? 

The  answer  goes  back  to  the  two  ways  of  regarding  the 
human  mind,  implied  in  Spinoza's  whole  doctrine.  If  we 
take,  that  is,  our  phenomenal  knowledge  about  the  world, 
the  particular  states  of  our  empirical  consciousness,  we 
have  what  Spinoza  calls  modes.  Now  these  facts  of  the 
finite  world  are  not  complete  in  themselves,  or  capable  of 
an  absolute  explanation.  Each  is  causally  dependent  on 
another  finite  fact,  and  this,  again,  on  another,  and  so  on, 
in  an  infinite  series.  Thus,  in  the  physical  realm,  any 
bodily  change  depends,  not  on  the  nature  of  the  body 
alone,  but  on  the  body  as  affected  by  another  mode,  that 
is,  upon  the  interaction  between  the  body  and  the  outside 
world ;  and  the  antecedents  of  this  interaction  can  never 
be  completely  traced  out.  The  same  thing  is  true  of  the 
modes  of  thought,  or  ideas,  which  correspond  to  the  bodily 
modes.  Accordingly,  our  supposed  adequate  knowledge 
of  objects  is  nothing  of  the  sort.  When  we  think  we  per- 
ceive an  external  object,  what  we  really  have  is  a  sensation 
representing  a  state  of  our  own  body  —  a  state  which  is 
caused  by  the  interaction  between  the  real  object  and  our 
sense  organs,  and  which,  consequently,  by  reason  of  its 
being  a  product  of  two  factors,  is  a  true  representative  of 
neither  of  them.  This  is  the  old  doctrine  of  the  relativity 
of  sense  perception,  which  goes  back  to  Protagoras.  All 
our  sense  knowledge  is,  therefore,  inadequate  and  confused. 

But  now  there  is  another  way  of  regarding  the  human 
mind.  Besides  being  a  collection  of  finite  modes,  our 
minds  are  also  a  constituent  part  of  God's  nature,  since 
everything  whatever  that  exists,  exists  in  God.  In  their 
essence,  therefore,  their  inmost  truth  and  reality,  our  ideas 
may  be  viewed  'under  a  certain  form  of  eternity ' ;  and  when 
thus  viewed,  they  of  course  are  adequate.  The  distinction, 
then,  between  actions  and  passions,  goes  back  to  the  dis- 
tinction between  adequate  thought,  which  has  its  full  ex- 
planation in  the  mind  itself,  as  identical  in  its  essence  with 


296        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

God ;  and  inadequate  thought,  which  depends  on  the  mind 
as  a  collection  of  finite  modes,  each  getting  what  explana- 
tion it  can  by  reference  to  an  infinite  series  of  other  finite 
facts.  We  are  never  fully  active,  except  as  we  think  truly, 
and  see  things  as  they  are  in  God ;  for  thought  is  the 
very  essence  of  our  nature.  "  The  desires  which  follow 
from  our  nature  in  such  a  way  that  they  can  be  compre- 
hended through  it  alone,  are  such  as  are  referred  to  the 
mind  in  so  far  as  it  is  conceived  as  consisting  of  adequate 
ideas.  The  other  desires,  however,  are  not  referred  to  the 
mind,  except  in  so  far  as  it  conceives  things  inadequately, 
and  their  strength  and  growth  must  be  defined,  not  as 
human  power,  but  as  that  of  the  things  that  are  outside  us. 
Hence,  the  former  are  properly  called  actions,  the  latter 
passions ;  for  the  former  always  indicate  our  power ;  the 
latter,  on  the  contrary,  our  impotence  and  fragmentary 
knowledge."  1 

But  now  the  mind  strives  to  persevere  in  its  being,  and 
is  conscious  of  this  its  endeavor,  not  only  in  so  far  as  it 
has  clear  and  distinct  ideas,  but  also  in  so  far  as  it  has 
confused  ideas.  And  here  comes  in  Spinoza's  doctrine  of 
the  emotions.  For  an  emotion  is  nothing  but  a  confused 
idea,  or  a  passion.  The  body  can  be  affected  in  many 
ways  by  which  its  power  of  acting  is  increased  or  dimin- 
ished ;  modifications  of  the  body,  and  their  corresponding 
ideas,  through  which  either  of  these  results  are  brought 
about,  are  what  we  call  emotions.  A  passion  in  which  the 
mind  passes  to  a  greater  degree  of  perfection  is  pleasure ; 
one  in  which  it  passes  to  a  lesser  degree  of  perfection  is  pain. 
By  reference  to  the  three  elements — desire,  pain,  pleasure — 
all  the  varied  emotions  are  to  be  defined.  Thus,  love  is  pleas- 
ure accompanied  by  the  idea  of  an  external  cause ;  hate  is 
pain  accompanied  by  a  similar  idea.  Derision  is  pleasure 
which  has  its  source  in  the  fact  that  we  conceive  something 
we  despise  to  be  in  the  thing  we  hate.  Hope  is  inconstant 
pleasure  arising  from  the  idea  of  something  future  or  past, 

1  Pt.  IV,  Appendix  II. 


Systems  of  Rationalism  297 

of  the  event  of  which  we  have  some  doubt.  Despair  is 
pain  arising  from  a  thing  present  or  past,  regarding  which 
cause  for  doubt  has  been  removed ;  and  so  on.  In  general, 
"an  emotion,  which  is  called  a  passion  of  the  soul,  is  a 
confused  idea,  through  which  the  mind  affirms  the  energy 
of  existence  possessed  by  its  body,  or  any  part  of  it,  to  be 
greater  or  less  than  it  was  before,  and  through  the  pres- 
ence of  which  the  mind  itself  is  determined  to  this  thought 
rather  than  to  that."  1 

The  attainment  of  freedom,  then,  has  two  sides.  It  is 
an  escape  from  the  emotions,  and  it  is  an  escape  from  in- 
adequate and  false  ideas :  and  these  two  things  are  one. 
True  blessedness  is  thus  the  blessedness  of  knowledge. 
"Hence  it  is  of  the  utmost  service  in  life  to  perfect  the 
understanding  or  reason,  as  far  as  we  can ;  and  in  this  one 
thing  consists  man's  highest  felicity.  Indeed,  blessedness 
is  nothing  but  that  very  satisfaction  of  the  soul  which 
arises  from  an  intuitive  knowledge  of  God.  But  to  perfect 
the  understanding  is  only  to  comprehend  God,  his  attri- 
butes, and  the  actions  that  follow  from  the  necessity  of  his 
nature.  Wherefore  the  ultimate  aim  of  the  man  who  is 
controlled  by  reason,  that  is,  the  highest  desire,  with  which 
he  strives  to  restrain  all  the  others,  is  that  which  impels  him 
to  conceive  adequately  himself  and  everything  that  can  fall 
within  the  scope  of  his  understanding." 2  That  only  is 
good  which  is  conducive  to  knowledge  ;  that  which  hinders 
and  diminishes  it  is  bad.  We  are  virtuous  in  so  far  as  we 
are  strong,  as  the  understanding  is  active ;  to  be  weak,  or 
passive,  is  to  be  vicious.  Thus  not  only  hatred  and  envy 
are  vices,  but  also  pity,  shame,  humility,  and  repentance. 
All  of  these  are  accompanied  by  a  feeling  of  pain ;  they 
concentrate  attention  on  our  weakness,  and  make  us  blind 
to  our  true  strength.  Compassion,  by  putting  an  undue 
emphasis  on  the  mere  external  signs  of  suffering,  diverts 
us  from  a  study  of  causes,  and  often  leads  us  to  acts  of 
blind  impulse  that  afterward  we  regret.  Repentance  is 

1  Pt.  Ill  (Fullerton,  p.  152).  2  Pt.  IV,  Appendix  IV. 


298        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

doubly  bad  ;  for  he  who  regrets  is  weak,  and  is  conscious 
of  his  weakness.  The  man  who  lives  according  to  reason 
will,  therefore,  strive  to  rise  above  pity  and  vain  regrets. 
He  will  help  his  neighbor,  but  he  will  do  it  from  reason, 
not  from  impulse.  He  will  consider  nothing  worthy  of 
hatred,  mockery,  or  contempt.  He  will  look  at  life  dispas- 
sionately and  fearlessly,  obeying  no  one  but  himself,  doing 
that  only  which  he  knows  to  be  best,  conquered  neither  by 
human  miseries  nor  his  own  mistakes. 

2.  Human  Freedom.  —  This,  in  general  terms,  is  the  out- 
come of  Spinoza's  philosophy ;  it  may  be  well,  however,  to 
consider  the  process  a  little  more  closely.  And  at  first 
sight  it  might  seem  that  freedom  is  impossible  in  Spinoza's 
system,  since  necessity  rules  in  this  from  first  to  last.  It  has 
been  seen  that  all  things  follow  necessarily  from  the  nature 
of  God ;  an  event  is  called  contingent  only  in  relation  to  the 
imperfection  of  our  knowledge.  And  of  course  man's  life 
does  not  fall  outside  this  necessity.  Is  it  said  that  we  know 
by  experience  that  it  is  within  the  power  of  the  mind  alone 
to  do  many  things  solely  by  its  own  decree ;  to  speak,  for 
example,  or  to  be  silent,  as  it  chooses  ?  "  But  surely  the 
condition  of  human  affairs  would  be  much  more  satisfactory 
if  it  were  as  much  within  man's  power  to  be  silent  as  to  speak. 
But  experience  gives  sufficient,  and  more  than  sufficient 
proof  of  the  fact  that  there  is  nothing  less  under  a  man's 
control  than  his  tongue,  nor  is  there  anything  of  which  a 
man  is  less  capable  than  of  restraining  his  impulse.  This 
is  the  reason  most  persons  believe  that  we  are  free  only  in 
doing  those  things  to  which  we  are  impelled  by  slight  de- 
sires, for  the  impulse  to  do  such  things  can  be  easily  checked 
by  the  memory  of  some  other  thing  of  which  we  often  think  ; 
but  that  we  are  by  no  means  free  in  doing  those  things  to 
which  we  are  impelled  by  strong  emotion,  which  cannot  be 
checked  by  the  memory  of  some  other  thing.  But,  had 
they  not  had  experience  of  the  fact  that  we  do  many  things 
which  we  afterward  regret,  and  that  we  often,  when  we 
are  harassed  by  conflicting  emotions,  see  the  better  and 


Systems  of  Rationalism  299 

follow  the  worse,  nothing  would  prevent  them  from  believ- 
ing that  we  are  always  free  in  our  actions.  Thus  the  in- 
fant believes  that  it  desires  milk  of  its  own  free  will ;  the 
angry  child  that  it  is  free  in  seeking  revenge,  and  the 
timid  that  it  is  free  in  taking  to  flight.  Again,  a  drunken 
man  believes  that  he  says  of  his  own  free  will  things  he 
afterward,  when  sober,  wishes  he  had  left  unsaid ;  so  also 
an  insane  man,  a  garrulous  woman,  a  child,  and  very  many 
others  of  the  sort,  believe  they  speak  of  their  own  free  will, 
while,  nevertheless,  they  are  unable  to  control  their  im- 
pulse to  talk.  Thus  experience  itself  shows,  no  less  clearly 
than  reason,  that  men  think  themselves  free  only  because 
they  are  conscious  of  their  actions,  and  ignorant  of  the 
causes  which  determine  them.  It  shows,  moreover,  that 
the  mind's  decisions  are  nothing  but  its  impulses,  which 
vary  with  the  varying  condition  of  the  body."  1 

We  cannot,  therefore,  escape  from  the  necessary  facts 
of  existence.  Reality  is  as  it  is,  and  we  cannot  make  it 
different.  But  this  is  bondage  only  when  we  rebel  against 
it,  and  set  up  in  its  stead  purely  individual  ends.  We 
shall  find  freedom  —  the  only  true  freedom  —  in  knowing 
the  truth  and  accepting  it.  We  are  not  under  constraint 
because  we  are  subject  to  law,  but  because  we  are  subject 
to  our  own  ignorance  and  passions.  God  is  perfect  free- 
dom, not  because  he  can  act  arbitrarily,  but  because  he 
acts  solely  from  the  laws  of  his  own  nature  and  under  no 
compulsion ;  there  is  nothing  external  to  him  that  can 
determine  him  to  act. 

Now  emotions,  since  they  are  passions  rather  than 
actions,  represent  such  an  influence  of  external  things. 
But  the  road  to  salvation  has  already  appeared.  We  can 
overcome  the  emotions  by  understanding  them,  by  ridding 
ourselves  of  our  confused  ideas,  and  seeing  everything  in 
its  innermost  truth,  as  a  necessary  fact.  Everyday  experi- 
ence will  show  us  how  potent  an  effect  the  recognition  of 
the  necessity  of  things  has  upon  our  attitude  toward  them. 

*  Pt.  Ill,  2,  Schol. 


300        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

"  The  more  the  knowledge  that  these  things  are  necessary 
is  brought  to  bear  upon  individual  things,  which  we  imag- 
ine more  distinctly  and  vividly,  the  greater  is  the  power  of 
the  mind  over  the  emotions.  To  this  fact  experience  itself 
bears  witness.  We  see  sorrow  at  the  loss  of  some  good 
thing  mitigated,  as  soon  as  the  man  who  has  lost  it  per- 
ceives that  he  could  not  have  preserved  it  in  any  possible 
way.  Thus  we  see,  also,  that  no  one  pities  an  infant  be- 
cause it  cannot  speak,  walk,  or  reason,  and  because,  in  a 
word,  it  lives  so  many  years,  as  it  were,  without  the  con- 
sciousness of  self.  But  if  most  persons  were  born  as  adults, 
and  only  one  here  and  there  as  an  infant,  then  every  one 
would  pity  infants,  for  then  we  should  regard  infancy  itself, 
not  as  a  natural  and  necessary  thing,  but  as  a  defect  or 
fault  of  nature." 

Accordingly,  Spinoza  goes  on  to  show  the  ways  in  which 
the  emotions  can  be  controlled  by  the  superior  force,  per- 
manence, frequency,  and  harmony  of  true  knowledge, 
which  enable  it  to  hold  the  mind  against  false  and  inade- 
quate ideas.  These  ways  all  go  back  ultimately  to  that 
which  constitutes  the  chief  power  of  adequate  ideas  —  their 
relation  to  the  idea  of  God.  Everything  alike  can  be 
referred  to  the  idea  of  God,  since  he  is  the  truth  of  all 
things;  and  when  it  is  thus  referred,  we  have  a  means 
at  hand  for  overcoming  the  emotions  whose  force  is  irre- 
sistible. For  the  philosopher,  convinced  that  all  events, 
including  human  actions,  are  the  outcome  of  the  necessity 
of  the  divine  nature,  nothing  merits  contempt,  hatred,  pity  ; 
he  has  simply  to  understand  them  as  a  part  of  the  whole 
of  things,  not  judge  them.  He  will  lay  aside  all  private 
and  selfish  aims,  and  merge  himself  in  the  great  life  of  the 
whole,  to  whose  will  he  will  bow  without  repining,  and  find 
thereby  joy  and  peace.  Once  know  and  accept  things  as 
they  are  in  God,  and  the  warring  desires  and  passions  which 
distract  us  will  pass  away ;  the  motives  which  look  large  to 
us  now  in  our  ignorance  will  lose  their  power.  "  Griefs  and 
misfortunes  have  their  chief  source  in  an  excessive  love  of 


Systems  of  Rationalism  301 

that  which  is  subject  to  many  variations,  and  of  which  we  can 
never  have  control.  No  one  is  solicitous  or  anxious  about 
anything  unless  he  love  it;  nor  do  injustices,  suspicions, 
enmities,  and  so  forth  arise,  except  from  the  love  of  things 
of  which  no  one  can  really  have  control.  Thus  we  easily 
conceive  what  power  clear  and  distinct  knowledge,  and 
especially  that  third  kind  of  knowledge,  the  foundation  of 
which  is  the  knowledge  of  God  and  nothing  else,  has  over 
the  emotions ;  if  it  does  not,  in  so  far  as  they  are  passions, 
absolutely  remove  them,  at  all  events  it  brings  it  about  that 
they  constitute  the  least  part  of  the  mind.  Furthermore, 
it  begets  love  toward  that  which  is  immutable  and  eternal, 
and  which  we  really  have  within  our  power — a  love  which, 
consequently,  is  not  stained  by  any  of  the  defects  inherent 
in  common  love,  but  can  always  become  greater  and  greater, 
and  take  possession  of  the  greatest  part  of  the  mind,  and 
affect  it  everywhere."  1 

This  is  very  different  from  the  love  of  God  which 
religion  ordinarily  inculcates.  The  God  of  positive  re- 
ligions is  a  God  of  the  imagination,  an  individual  like 
ourselves,  who  loves  and  hates,  is  angry  and  jealous,  and 
acts  by  an  arbitrary  will.  Accordingly,  all  the  defects 
of  human  love  enter  into  our  relations  to  him,  and  love 
may  easily  pass  into  hate.  But  no  one  can  hate  the 
eternal  and  necessary  order  of  nature.  This  love  toward 
God  cannot  be  stained  either  with  the  emotion  of  envy  or 
of  jealousy,  but  it  is  the  more  intensified  the  greater  the 
number  of  men  we  conceive  bound  to  God  by  this  same 
bond  of  love.  "  We  can  show  in  the  same  way  that  there 
is  no  emotion  directly  opposed  to  this  love  capable  of 
destroying  it.  Hence  we  may  conclude  that  this  love 
toward  God  is  the  most  unchangeable  of  all  the  emotions, 
and  cannot,  in  so  far  as  it  is  referred  to  the  body,  be 
destroyed  except  with  the  body  itself." 

In  the  final  stage  of  this  process  of  emancipation,  we 
have  already  gone  beyond  mere  practical  rules  of  life,  to 

i  Pt.  V,  20,  SchoL 


302        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

the  conception  of  a  mystical  union  with  God,  which  gives 
its  peculiar  tinge  to  Spinoza's  whole  thought.  From  the 
falsity  of  ordinary  opinion,  or  imagination,  we  have  passed 
by  the  power  of  discursive  reason  to  adequate  ideas ;  but 
there  is  a  higher  kind  of  knowledge  still.  Reason  is  not 
merely  our  individual  reason  working  under  conditions  of 
time ;  it  is  also  eternal,  freed  from  all  restrictions,  a  part 
of  the  infinite  intellect  of  God.  And  the  same  truths  which 
we  have  gained  laboriously  by  processes  of  reasoning  may 
also  take  on  another  form,  the  form  of  an  immediate  flash 
of  intuition,  in  which  they  are  seen  to  flow  directly  from 
the  one  Truth  —  God.  From  this  third  kind  of  knowledge 
springs  the  highest  possible  satisfaction  of  the  mind. 
"  The  more  of  this  kind  of  knowledge  any  one  possesses, 
the  clearer  is  his  consciousness  of  himself  and  of  God, 
that  is,  the  more  perfect  and  blessed  is  he."  "  From  this 
third  kind  of  knowledge  necessarily  springs  the  intellectual 
love  of  God.  For  from  this  kind  of  knowledge  springs 
pleasure,  accompanied  by  the  idea  of  God  as  cause,  that  is, 
a  love  of  God,  not  in  so  far  as  we  imagine  him  as  present, 
but  in  so  far  as  we  comprehend  God  to  be  eternal."  "  And 
this  intellectual  love  of  the  mind  toward  God  is  the  very 
love  of  God  with  which  God  loves  himself,  not  in  so  far  as 
he  is  infinite,  but  in  so  far  as  he  can  be  expressed  by  the 
essence  of  the  human  mind,  considered  under  the  form  of 
eternity ;  that  is,  the  intellectual  love  of  the  mind  toward 
God  is  a  part  of  the  infinite  love  with  which  God  loves 
himself.  From  this  we  clearly  comprehend  in  what  our 
salvation,  or  blessedness,  or  freedom,  consists ;  to  wit,  in 
an  unchangeable  and  eternal  love  toward  God,  that  is,  in 
the  love  of  God  toward  men.  This  love  or  blessedness  is 
in  the  sacred  Scriptures  called  glory."  * 

To  sum  up,  then,  how  does  this  doctrine  of  freedom 
contribute  to  the  service  of  life  ?  "  First,  it  is  of  value  in 
that  it  teaches  us  that  we  act  according  to  God's  decree, 
and  are  participants  in  the  divine  nature ;  and  this  the 

1  Pt.  V,  31,  Schol. ;   32,  Cor. ;   36,  and  SchoL 


Systems  of  Rationalism  303 

more,  the  more  perfect  the  actions  we  perform,  and  the 
better  we  comprehend  God.  Hence  this  doctrine  not  only 
sets  the  soul  completely  at  rest,  but  also  teaches  us  in  what 
our  highest  felicity  or  blessedness  consists,  to  wit,  only  in 
the  knowledge  of  God,  which  leads  us  to  do  only  those 
things  that  love  and  piety  recommend.  Thus  we  see 
clearly  how  far  from  a  true  estimate  of  virtue  are  those 
who  expect  God  to  honor  them  with  the  highest  rewards 
for  their  virtue  and  good  actions,  as  though  for  the  ex- 
tremest  slavery  —  as  if  virtue  and  the  service  of  God  were 
not  felicity  itself,  and  the  completest  freedom.  Second, 
it  is  of  value  in  that  it  teaches  us  how  to  behave  with 
regard  to  those  things  which  depend  upon  fortune,  and 
which  are  not  within  our  power,  that  is,  with  regard  to 
those  things  that  do  not  follow  from  our  nature.  It 
teaches  us,  namely,  to  look  forward  to  and  endure  either 
aspect  of  fortune  with  equanimity,  just  because  all  things 
follow  from  the  eternal  decree  of  God,  by  the  same  neces- 
sity with  which  it  follows  from  the  essence  of  a  triangle 
that  its  three  angles  are  equal  to  two  right  angles.  Third, 
this  doctrine  is  of  service  to  social  life  in  that  it  teaches 
to  hate  no  one,  to  despise,  to  ridicule,  to  be  angry  at  no  one, 
to  envy  no  one.  It  is  of  service,  further,  in  that  it  teaches 
each  one  to  be  content  with  what  he  has,  and  to  aid  his 
neighbor,  not  from  womanish  pity,  partiality,  or  superstition, 
but  solely  under  the  guidance  of  reason,  according  to  the 
demands  of  the  time  and  the  case.  Fourth,  this  doctrine 
is  of  no  little  advantage  to  the  state  in  that  it  shows  how 
citizens  ought  to  be  governed  and  led ;  namely,  not  so  as 
to  act  like  slaves,  but  so  as  to  do  freely  what  is  best."1 

"  And  even  if  we  did  not  know  our  mind  to  be  eternal, 
we  should  nevertheless  regard  as  of  the  highest  importance 
piety  and  religion.  The  belief  of  the  multitude  appears  to 
be  otherwise.  Most  men  seem  to  think  that  they  are  free 
just  in  so  far  as  they  are  permitted  to  gratify  desire,  and  that 
they  give  up  their  independence  just  in  so  far  as  they  are 

1  Pt.  II,  49,  SchoL 


304         A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

obliged  to  live  according  to  the  precept  of  the  divine  law. 
Piety,  then,  and  religion,  and  all  things,  without  restriction, 
that  are  referred  to  greatness  of  soul,  they  regard  as  bur- 
dens ;  and  they  hope  after  death  to  lay  these  down,  and 
to  receive  the  reward  of  their  bondage,  that  is,  of  piety 
and  religion.  And  not  only  by  this  hope  alone,  but  also 
and  chiefly  by  fear  —  the  fear  of  being  punished  after 
death  with  dire  torments  —  are  they  induced  to  live  ac- 
cording to  the  precept  of  the  divine  law,  so  far  as  their 
poverty  and  feebleness  of  soul  permit.  If  men  had  not 
this  hope  and  fear,  but  if,  on  the  contrary,  they  thought 
that  minds  perished  with  the  body,  and  that  for  the 
wretched,  worn  out  with  the  burden  of  piety,  there  was 
no  continuance  of  existence,  they  would  return  to  their 
inclination,  and  decide  to  regulate  everything  according 
to  their  lusts,  and  to  be  governed  by  chance  rather  than 
by  themselves.  This  seems  to  me  no  less  absurd  than  it 
would  seem  if  some  one,  because  he  does  not  believe  he 
can  nourish  his  body  with  good  food  to  eternity,  should 
choose  to  stuff  himself  with  what  is  poisonous  and  deadly ; 
or,  because  he  sees  that  his  mind  is  not  eternal  or  im- 
mortal, should  choose  on  that  account  to  be  mad,  and  to 
live  without  reason.  Blessedness  is  not  the  reward  of 
virtue,  but  virtue  itself ;  nor  do  we  rejoice  in  it  because 
we  restrain  the  desires,  but,  on  the  contrary,  because  we 
rejoice  in  it  we  are  able  to  restrain  the  desires."  * 

"  With  this  I  have  completed  all  that  I  intended  to  show 
regarding  the  power  of  the  mind  over  the  emotions,  and 
the  freedom  of  the  mind.  From  what  I  have  said  it  is 
evident  how  much  stronger  and  better  the  wise  man  is 
than  the  ignorant  man,  who  is  led  by  mere  desire.  For 
the  ignorant  man,  besides  being  agitated  in  many  ways  by 
external  causes,  and  never  attaining  true  satisfaction  of 
soul,  lives  as  it  were  without  consciousness  of  himself, 
of  God,  and  of  things,  and  just  as  soon  as  he  ceases  to  be 
acted  upon,  ceases  to  be.  While,  on  the  contrary,  the 

1  Pt.  V,  41  and  Schol. ;  42. 


Systems  of  Rationalism  305 

wise  man,  in  so  far  as  he  is  considered  as  such,  is  little 
disturbed  in  mind,  but,  conscious  by  a  certain  eternal 
necessity  of  himself,  of  God,  and  of  things,  he  never  ceases 
to  be,  but  is  always  possessed  of  true  satisfaction  of  soul. 
If,  indeed,  the  path  that  I  have  shown  to  lead  to  this 
appears  very  difficult,  still  it  may  be  found.  And  surely 
it  must  be  difficult,  since  it  is  so  rarely  found.  For  if 
salvation  were  easily  attained,  and  could  be  found  without 
great  labor,  how  could  it  be  neglected  by  nearly  every 
one  ?  But  all  excellent  things  are  as  difficult  as  they  are 
rare."  J 

LITERATURE 

Spinoza,  Chief  Works :  Improvement  of  the  Intellect,  Ethics,  Theo- 
logico-Political  Treatise,  Political  Treatise.  Translations :  Elwes 
(Works,  2  vols.)  ;  White  (Ethics)  ;  Fullerton  (Selections  from  Ethics). 

Pollock,  Spinoza. 

Martineau,  Study  of  Spinoza. 

Martineau,  Types  of  Ethical  Theory. 

Caird,  Spinoza. 

Caird,  Essays  on  Literature  and  Philosophy. 

Iverach,  Descartes,  Spinoza,  and  the  New  Philosophy. 

Joachim,  Study  of  the  Ethics  of  Spinoza. 

Duff,  Spinoza?s  Political  and  Ethical  Philosophy. 

§  30.   Leibniz 

The  temperament  and  life  history  of  Gottfried  Wilhelm 
Leibniz  are  as  far  as  possible  removed  from  those  of  his 
great  predecessor.  Born  in  Leipsic  in  1646,  he  early 
showed  a  remarkable  genius  which  took  the  whole  world 
as  its  field.  In  mathematics,  where  he  is  celebrated  as 
being  one  of  the  discoverers  of  the  differential  calculus  ; 
in  law,  civil  and  international ;  in  history  (he  was  employed 
to  write  the  memoirs  of  the  family  of  his  patron,  the  Duke 
of  Hanover) ;  in  religious  controversy,  and  in  philosophy 
proper  —  in  all  these  different  directions  he  stood  among 
the  leading  men  of  his  time.  This  universality  of  mind 

1  Pt.  v,  42,  SchoL 
x 


306         A  Students  History  of  Philosophy 

enabled  him  to  do  justice  to  the  varied  interests  which 
philosophy  has  to  serve,  and  made  his  system  a  gathering- 
point  of  the  various  threads  which  had  entered  into  the 
entire  past  development.  Almost  alone  of  the  men  of  his 
time  —  the  time  of  the  Enlightenment  —  he  had  some  just 
appreciation  of  the  past  and  of  history ;  and  he  was  able 
to  enter  sympathetically  into  the  thought  alike  of  Plato 
and  Descartes,  of  the  Schoolmen  and  the  scientists  of  his 
own  day. 

The  practical  side  of  Leibniz'  nature  was  another  factor 
which  influenced  his  theoretical  views.  He  was  no  mere 
thinker,  like  Spinoza,  but  a  man  of  the  world,  in  the  midst 
of,  and  taking  a  large  part  in,  the  political  life  of  his  time. 
His  legal  training  early  gave  him  an  entrance  into  politics, 
and,  either  as  writer  or  diplomatic  agent,  he  was  connected 
with  most  of  the  important  events  of  the  period.  This 
practical  training  perhaps  emphasized  his  tendency  to 
mediate  between  opposing  views.  The  same  spirit  which 
led  him  to  attempt  to  get  at  the  truth  in  all  philosophies, 
reveals  itself  in  his  political  aims ;  for  example,  in  his 
endeavor  to  heal  the  differences  between  Protestants  and 
Catholics,  by  drawing  up  a  compromise  on  which  both 
could  unite.  In-  addition  to  all  the  labor  which  these 
political  offices  involved,  we  should  mention  also  the  effort, 
occupying  a  considerable  part  of  Leibniz'  life,  to  secure 
the  establishment  in  Germany  of  learned  societies,  or 
Academies,  by  which  the  results  of  the  new  scientific 
spirit  should  be  conserved  and  applied  to  human  ends. 
This  bore  fruit  during  Leibniz'  own  lifetime  in  the  Berlin 
Academy. 

i.  The  Nature  of  Substance.  --The  more  general 
aspects  of  Leibniz'  philosophy  can  perhaps  be  brought 
out  by  comparing  them  with  the  solution  which  Spinoza 
had  offered.  The  main  emphasis  in  Spinoza  had  been 
upon  the  unity  of  the  world,  a  unity  which  brings  to- 
gether the  factors  which  Descartes  had  left  separate  — 
mind,  matter,  and  God.  To  Leibniz,  also,  this  was  the 


Systems  of  Rationalism  307 

ultimate  goal  of  philosophy ;  and  yet  it  had  been  pur- 
chased at  what  seemed  to  him  too  great  a  sacrifice.  For 
apparently  it  left  no  place  for  the  reality  of  individ- 
uals —  men  and  things ;  it  was  a  mere  abstract  unity, 
in  which  all  the  particular  facts  of  the  world  were  swal- 
lowed up.  This  result  to  Leibniz  was  unsatisfactory.  A 
man  of  practical  affairs,  individuals  were  to  him  indubi- 
tably real,  and  no  theory  which  failed  to  account  for  their 
reality  seemed  tenable.  A  unity  must,  indeed,  be  attained, 
but  it  must  be  a  unity  of  the  real  facts  of  the  world,  and 
not  lying  beyond  them.  So,  also,  Leibniz  was  not  satis- 
fied with  Spinoza's  rejection  of  teleology,  or  purpose,  in 
the  world.  Here  again  his  experience  of  life  stood  him  in 
stead ;  the  very  essense  of  practical  life  consists  in  work- 
ing for  ends,  and  nothing  which  rejects  ends  altogether 
can  seem  adequate  to  the  practical  man.  At  the  same 
time,  Leibniz  felt  the  need,  as  Spinoza  had  done,  of  bridg- 
ing over  the  gaps  which  Descartes  had  left.  He  accepted, 
too,  at  least  the  relative  validity  of  that  purely  mechanical 
view  of  the  physical  world  which  Descartes  had  started, 
and  which  Spinoza's  parallelism  had  been  designed  to 
justify.  How  was  he  to  retain  these  truths,  and  still  do 
justice  to  the  world  of  finite  things,  and  to  human  intelli- 
gence and  freedom  ? 

The  answer  which  Leibniz  gave  was  made  possible  by 
means  of  a  reconstruction  of  the  idea  of  substance,  both 
mental  and  material.  Descartes  had  defined  matter  as  ex- 
tended substance.  This  had  involved  the  assumption  that  it 
is  essentially  passive  and  inert,  and  able  to  receive  motion 
only  from  the  outside.  Leibniz  was  led  by  various  motives 
to  substitute,  for  extension,  power  of  resistance,  as  the  essen- 
tial quality  of  matter,  to  which  even  extension  is  subordi- 
nate. In  this  way  the  conception  of  passive  matter  is 
changed  to  what  is  essentially  the  modern  scientific  con- 
ception —  energy,  or  force.  A  substance  is  a  being  capa- 
ble of  action.  Since,  therefore,  we  find  individual  things 
exerting  force,  the  substantiality  of  which  they  had  been 


308        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

deprived  by  Spinoza,  in  favor  of  his  single  ultimate 
substance,  must  be  restored  to  them.  But,  furthermore, 
these  substantial  units,  to  which  extended  matter  reduces 
itself,  cannot  be  themselves  extended.  We  cannot  find 
anything  really  ultimate  and  indivisible  in  the  atoms  of  the 
physicists ;  whatever  is  still  material,  however  small  it 
may  be,  is  still  divisible.  In  order  to  find  a  true  indivisible 
unit,  we  need  to  go  back  of  the  extended  and  the  material 
altogether.  Matter  is  thus  at  bottom  immaterial;  it  is 
made  up  of  substantial  units  that  are  themselves  un- 
extended. 

But  from  this  new  standpoint  there  is  opened  up  the 
possibility  of  removing  the  absoluteness  of  that  distinc- 
tion between  matter  and  mind,  upon  which  Descartes  had 
insisted.  If  the  essence  of  matter  is  extension,  then  it  has 
no  point  of  contact  with  the  mental  life.  It  is,  indeed, 
exactly  the  opposite  of  thought.  And  so  the  attempt  of 
Spinoza,  also,  to  get  rid  of  the  dualism  by  referring  both 
thought  and  extension  to  a  single  substance,  is  essentially 
self-contradictory ;  it  is  asserting  that  the  same  substance 
is  both  extended  and  unextended.  But  when,  instead  of 
extension,  we  characterize  matter  as  force,  a  means  of  con- 
nection is  opened  up.  For  force  has  its  analogue  in  the 
conscious  life ;  corresponding  to  the  activity  of  matter  is 
conscious  activity,  or  will.  Indeed,  are  there  any  positive 
terms  in  which  we  can  describe  the  nature  of  force,  unless 
we  conceive  it  as  identical  with  that  conscious  activity 
which  we  know  directly  in  ourselves  ?  The  notion  of  mat- 
ter has  thus  been  completely  transformed.  Instead  of  its 
being  a  passive  lump  of  extended  substance,  extension  is 
only  the  phenomenal  way  in  which  it  appears  to  us.  In 
reality,  what  we  call  matter  is  a  host  of  unextended  cen- 
tres of  force,  whose  activity  is  at  bottom,  when  we  inter- 
pret it,  a  spiritual  or  perceptual  activity.  The  reality  of 
the  world  is  not  matter,  but  monads. 

In  order,  however,  to  complete  the  union,  the  concept 
of  mind  has  also  to  suffer  a  partial  transformation.  Ac- 


Systems  of  Rationalism  309 

cording  to  Descartes,  again,  the  essence  of  mind  is  thought ; 
and  Leibniz  also  retains  a  tendency  to  intellectualism.  But 
whereas  hitherto  consciousness  had  been  taken  to  mean 
that  of  which  we  are  distinctly  conscious,  Leibniz  vastly 
enlarges  the  conception.  Below  the  threshold  of  our  clear 
consciousness  there  is,  he  thinks,  a  dark  background  of 
obscurer  consciousness,  petites  perceptions,  unconscious 
mental  states.  The  existence  of  these,  Leibniz  proves  by 
various  considerations.  "  For  a  better  understanding  of 
the  petites  perceptions  I  am  wont  to  employ  the  illustration 
of  the  moaning  or  sound  of  the  sea,  which  we  notice  when 
we  are  on  the  shore.  In  order  to  hear  this  sound  as  we 
do,  we  must  hear  the  parts  of  which  the  whole  sound  is 
made  up,  that  is  to  say,  the  sounds  which  come  from  each 
wave,  although  each  of  these  little  sounds  makes  itself 
known  only  in  the  confused  combination  of  all  the  sounds 
taken  together,  that  is  to  say,  in  the  moaning  of  the  sea, 
and  no  one  of  the  sounds  would  be  observed  if  the  wave 
which  makes  it  were  alone.  For  we  must  be  affected  a 
little  by  the  motion  of  this  wave,  and  we  must  have  some 
perception  of  each  of  these  sounds,  however  little  they 
may  be ;  otherwise  we  should  not  have  a  perception  of  a 
hundred  thousand  waves,  for  a  hundred  thousand  nothings 
cannot  make  something.  We  never  sleep  so  profoundly 
as  not  to  have  some  feeble  and  confused  feeling,  and  we 
should  never  be  wakened  by  the  greatest  noise  in  the 
world  if  we  had  not  some  perception  of  its  beginning, 
which  is  small,  just  as  we  should  never  break  a  cord  by 
the  greatest  effort  in  the  world,  if  it  were  not  strained  and 
stretched  a  little  by  less  efforts,  though  the  small  exten- 
sion they  produce  is  not  apparent."  1 

Now  in  this  conception,  we  have  a  means  of  removing 
the  gap  which  apparently  still  exists  between  what  we 
know  as  mind,  and  the  blind  workings  of  force  in  material 
nature.  This  is  done  through  the  principle  of  continuity, 

1  New  Essays  (p.  371).  This  and  the  succeeding  quotations  are  taken 
from  Latta's  translation.  (Clarendon  Press.) 


310        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

which  is  another  of  the  great  watchwords  of  Leibniz'  phi- 
losophy. According  to  this  principle,  there  are  no  breaks 
in  nature.  Things  shade  into  one  another  by  infinitely 
small  gradations.  Consequently,  there  is  a  continuous 
series  from  the  lowest  monads  up  to  the  highest,  which 
we  call  souls,  or  spirits.  The  life  of  each  monad  is  a 
thought  life,  a  life  of  perceptual  activity ;  but  it  is  thought 
which  may  be  infinitely  confused.  It  is  this  confused 
thought  which  constitutes  the  life  of  the  material  monads, 
and  which,  compared  with  our  own,  is  like  a  swoon  or 
dreamless  sleep.  What  we  call  souls,  on  the  contrary,  are 
monads  in  which  this  confused  thought  has  come  to  at 
least  a  partial  consciousness  of  itself.  Even  in  man,  a 
large  part  of  the  soul  life  is  still  obscure.  Sense  percep- 
tion and  feeling  are  such  confused  thought.  It  is  on 
account  of  this  confusion  that  we  see  the  world  as  mate- 
rial, and  not  for  what  it  really  is  —  a  collection  of  imma- 
terial beings.  Accordingly,  there  is  no  difference  in  kind 
between  souls  and  other  monads,  but  only  in  degree ;  both 
are  spiritual  in  their  nature.  However,  this  difference  in 
degree  is  infinitely  varied,  and  sufficient  to  account  for  all 
the  apparent  oppositions  in  the  world. 

So  far,  then,  we  find  reality  to  be  made  up  of  an  infinite 
host  of  individual  beings,  or  monads,  representing  count- 
less different  grades  of  development.  Those  lower  in 
the  scale  are  what  we  call  matter;  those  more  highly 
developed  are  souls ;  while  highest  of  all  are  self-con- 
scious minds,  or  spirits.  The  inner  nature  of  these  monads 
is  force;  or,  to  interpret  this  in  more  ultimate  terms,  an 
active  life  consisting  in  more  or  less  conscious  perception, 
or  thought.  "  In  the  smallest  particle  of  matter  there  is  a 
world  of  creatures,  living  beings,  animals,  entelechies,  souls. 
Each  portion  of  matter  may  be  conceived  as  like  a  garden 
full  of  plants,  and  like  a  pond  full  of  fishes.  But  each 
branch  of  every  plant,  each  member  of  every  animal, 
each  drop  of  its  liquid  parts,  is  also  some  such  garden 
or  pond.  Thus  there  is  nothing  fallow,  nothing  sterile, 


Systems  of  Rationalism  311 

nothing  dead  in  the  universe;  no  chaos,  no  confusion 
save  in  appearance,  somewhat  as  it  might  appear  to  be 
in  a  pond  at  a  distance,  in  which  one  would  see  a  con- 
fused movement,  and,  as  it  were,  a  swarming  of  fish  in 
the  pond,  without  separately  distinguishing  the  fish  them- 
selves." 1 

2.  P reestablished  Harmony.  —  But  now  we  seem  to 
have  been  carried  to  the  opposite  pole  from  Spinoza,  and, 
in  establishing  the  reality  of  individuals,  to  have  lost  the 
unity  which  is  to  bind  them  together.  And  the  way  in 
which  Leibniz  goes  on  to  describe  the  life  of  the  monads 
seems  to  make  the  problem  more  desperate  still.  Each 
monad,  as  a  centre  of  force,  has  the  principle  of  its  life 
and  development  contained  wholly  in  its  own  nature.  In- 
stead of  being,  like  the  matter  of  Descartes,  passive,  and 
so  influenced  only  from  without,  it  is  never  influenced  from 
without  at  all.  It  has  a  perfect  independence  as  regards 
the  influence  of  all  other  created  things.  "  Each  spirit 
being  like  a  world  apart,  sufficient  to  itself,  independent  of 
every  other  created  thing,  involving  the  infinite,  expressing 
the  universe,  is  as  lasting,  as  continuous  in  its  existence, 
and  as  absolute  as  the  very  universe  of  created  things."  z 
How,  indeed,  is  a  purely  external  influence  thinkable  ? 
How  could  a  thing  act  in  response  to  an  outer  influence, 
unless  it  were  its  own  nature  so  to  act;  unless,  that  is,  it 
had  the  active  principle  of  its  movement  already  in  itself  ? 
Each  monad  thus  lives  its  own  life  independently  of  every 
other  monad.  It  is  shut  up  to  the  possibilities  of  its  own 
nature,  and  develops  solely  in  accordance  with  its  own  laws. 
It  has  no  windows  through  which  anything  can  come  in 
or  go  out.  And  yet,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  different 
monads  must  somehow  be  related,  and  take  account  of 
other  monads  in  their  actions,  in  order  to  account  for  the 
ordered  Cosmos  that  results.  What  is  the  explanation  of 
the  apparent  contradiction  ? 

The  answer  lies  in  the  two  words  —  Preestablished  Har- 

1  Monad.,  66,  67,  69.  2  New  System  (p.  316). 


312         A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

mony.  It  is  true  that  each  monad  is  a  thing  by  itself,  un- 
influenced by  any  other  monad.  Nevertheless,  there  is  a 
real  unity  in  the  world ;  it  is  the  unity  of  a  plan  or  pur- 
pose which  the  world  reveals,  and  which  has  its  source 
in  the  mind  of  God.  With  reference  to  each  other,  the 
monads  are  indeed  windowless ;  they  develop  in  accord- 
ance with  principles  immanent  in  their  own  being.  But 
still  they  are  not  absolutely  isolated.  There  is  a  higher 
reality  on  which  each  depends,  and  a  higher  purpose  which 
each  serves.  And  it  is  this  which  explains  why,  in  spite  of 
being  isolated,  the  monads  yet  show  so  close  a  correspond- 
ence. For  it  is  with  reference  to  this  universal  plan  that 
the  nature  of  each  monad  is  constituted  at  the  start.  The 
course  of  development  which  is  to  make  up  the  life  of  each 
is  originally  determined  with  the  whole  universe  of  other 
monads  directly  in  view.  So,  by  simply  following  its 
own  course,  without  interference  from  anything  outside,  it 
yet  runs  parallel  to,  and  reflects,  the  development  which  is 
going  on  independently  in  other  monads. 

This  thought  is  illustrated  by  Leibniz  in  a  simile.  "  I 
will  say  that  this  concomitance  which  I  maintain,  is  com- 
parable to  several  different  bands  of  musicians  or  choirs, 
playing  their  parts  separately,  and  so  placed  that  they  do 
not  see  or  even  hear  one  another  ;  which  can  nevertheless 
keep  perfectly  together,  by  each  following  their  own  notes, 
in  such  a  way  that  he  who  hears  them  all  finds  in  them  a 
harmony  that  is  wonderful,  and  much  more  surprising  than 
if  there  had  been  any  connection  between  them."  1  The 
nature  of  the  correspondence  Leibniz  expresses  in  the 
statement  that  each  monad,  although  windowless,  never- 
theless, at  each  stage  of  its  existence,  'mirrors,  from  its 
special  point  of  view,  the  life  of  all  the  rest  of  the  world ; 
just  as  in  the  physical  realm  each  movement  involves  all 
other  movements  in  the  universe.  This  latter  fact  is,  in- 
deed, only  the  other  side,  the  phenomenal  aspect,  of  the 
first.  So  one  might  come  to  know  the  beauty  of  the  whole 

1  Letter  to  Arnauld  (Latta,  p.  47). 


Systems  of  Rationalism  313 

universe  in  each  soul,  if  he  could  unfold  all  that  is  enfolded 
in  it  from  the  start. 

This  conception  of  preestablished  harmony  has  a  par- 
ticular application,  in  Leibniz'  mind,  to  one  specific  prob- 
lem —  the  relationship  of  mind  and  body.  Of  course  what 
we  call  a  body  is,  for  him,  not  an  actual  material  thing, 
but  a  group  of  monads,  of  the  less  developed  sort.  Every 
"  soul,"  or  higher  monad,  has  such  a  group  of  inferior 
associates  with  which  it  stands  in  a  specially  close  connec- 
tion. These,  by  the  law  of  their  nature,  tend  to  subordi- 
nate themselves  to  the  central  and  ruling  "  soul,"  in  virtue 
of  its  higher  development ;  and  thus  they  constitute  what 
appears  to  us  phenomenally  as  an  organic  body.  "  These 
principles  have  given  me  a  way  of  explaining  naturally  the 
union,  or  rather  the  mutual  agreement,  of  the  soul  and  the 
organic  body.  The  soul  follows  its  own  laws,  and  the  body 
likewise  follows  its  own  laws ;  and  they  agree  with  each 
other  in  virtue  of  the  preestablished  harmony  between  all 
substances,  since  they  are  all  representations  of  one  and 
the  same  universe."  1 

This  is  expressed  in  the  famous  figure  of  the  clocks. 
Suppose  two  clocks  or  watches,  which  perfectly  keep 
time  together ;  this  may  happen  in  three  ways.  The  first 
way  is  by  a  direct  mechanical  influence  of  one  upon  the 
other,  and  this  is  the  ordinary  conception  of  the  relation 
between  body  and  soul.  The  second  way  of  making  two 
clocks,  even  though  they  be  bad  ones,  keep  together,  would 
be  to  put  them  in  charge  of  a  skilled  workman,  who 
should  regulate  them  from  moment  to  moment  —  this, 
again,  is  the  theory  of  Occasionalism.  Finally,  the 
third  way  would  be  to  make  the  two  clocks  at  first  with 
such  skill  that  we  could  be  sure  of  their  correspond- 
ing accurately  for  all  the  future.  This  is  the  way  of 
preestablished  harmony  —  "a  contrivance  of  the  divine 
foreknowledge,  which  has  from  the  beginning  formed 
each  of  these  substances  in  so  perfect,  so  regular  and  accu- 

1  Monad.,  78. 


314        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

rate  a  manner,  that  by  merely  following  its  own  laws, 
which  were  given  to  it  when  it  came  into  being,  each  sub- 
stance is  yet  in  harmony  with  the  other,  just  as  if  there 
were  a  mutual  influence  between  them,  or  as  if  God  were 
continually  putting  his  hand  upon  them."1  There  is  no 
need,  therefore,  of  any  intervention,  which,  indeed,  implies 
an  altogether  unworthy  notion  of  God.  Surely,  his  skill 
is  not  so  limited  that  he  could  not  make  a  mechanism  that 
would  run  forever,  and  so  must  wind  up  his  watch  from 
time  to  time,  to  prevent  its  running  down.  The  more  he 
has  to  mend  it  and  set  it  right,  the  poorer  a  mechanic  it 
shows  him  to  be.  "  According  to  my  system,  bodies  act 
as  if  (to  suppose  the  impossible)  there  were  no  souls,  and 
souls  act  as  if  there  were  no  bodies,  and  both  act  as  if 
each  influenced  the  other."  2 

The  reality  of  the  world  is,  then,  once  more,  the  life  of 
a  multitude  of  immaterial  beings,  each  developing  its  own 
nature  in  accordance  with  laws  which  it  is  impossible  that 
other  monads  should  interfere  with,  and  yet  in  relation  to 
a  general  plan,  which  finds  its  complete  summing  up  in  the 
one  ultimate  being  —  God.  On  him  they  severally  depend, 
and  this  dependence  enables  them  to  act  in  harmony  with 
the  rest  of  the  world,  and  to  mirror  its  course  ideally  in 
their  own  lives.  And  this  gives,  too,  the  content  of  the 
purpose  of  the  world  in  so  far  as  it  is  possible  for  us  to 
fathom  it.  Development  consists  in  making  actual  for 
each  monad  the  possibilities  of  its  own  nature.  And  since 
that  nature  is  thought,  it  consists  in  getting  rid  of  confused 
perceptions,  and  attaining  to  the  true  ideas  which  lie  con- 
cealed in  the  muddy  depths  of  our  primitive  experience. 
The  goal  of  life  is  to  see  things  truly  as  they  exist  for  God. 
Such  a  condition  is  the  only  true  freedom.  Of  course 
Leibniz  cannot  admit  any  freedom  of  a  purely  arbitrary 
will.  The  monad's  nature  is  given  at  the  start,  and  the 
course  of  a  man's  development  thus  is  fixed.  Every  pres- 
ent state  of  a  simple  substance  is  naturally  a  consequence 

1  Third  Explanation  (p.  331).  2  Monad.,  8l. 


Systems  of  Rationalism  3 1 5 

of  its  preceding  state,  in  such  a  way  that  its  present  is 
big  with  its  future.  But  man  is  free  in  the  sense  that  it  is 
the  law  of  his  own  nature  that  determines  him,  not  some- 
thing from  the  outside.  He  is  free  to  realize  himself  in 
his  completeness :  ajid  in  sp_  far  as  confusedness  g^ves 
place  to  clear  thought,  and  the  reasons  for  his  activity. 
cease  to  lie  beyond  his  knowledge^  this  freedom  becomes. 
conscious  and  actual.  Through  knowledge,  the  soul  is 
truly  active,  truly  a  law  to  itself. 

3.  The  World  of  Freedom. — This  fact  of  freedom,  of 
self-conscious  development,  takes  us  out  of  the  realm 
of  phenomena,  and  relates  us  to  the  purposes  of  God  and 
the  moral  universe.  "Among  other  differences  which 
exist  between  ordinary  souls  and  spirits  there  is  also 
this :  that  souls  in  general  are  living  mirrors  or  images 
of  the  universe  of  created  things,  but  that  spirits  are 
also  images  of  the  Deity  or  Author  of  nature  Himself, 
capable  of  knowing  the  system  of  the  universe,  and  to 
some  extent  of  imitating  it,  each  spirit  being  like  a  small 
divinity  in  its  own  sphere.  It  is  this  that  enables  spirits 
to  enter  into  a  kind  of  fellowship  with  God,  and  brings 
it  about  that  in  relation  to  them  he  is  not  only  what 
an  inventor  is  to  his  machine  (which  is  the  relation  of 
God  to  other  created  things),  but  also  what  a  prince  is 
to  his  subjects,  and,  indeed,  what  a  father  is  to  his  chil- 
dren. Whence  it  is  easy  to  conclude  that  the  totality  of 
all  spirits  must  compose  the  City  of  God,  that  is  to  say,  the 
most  perfect  state  that  is  possible,  under  the  most  perfect 
of  monarchs.  This  City  of  God,  this  truly  universal  mon- 
archy, is  a  moral  world  in  the  natural  world,  and  is  the 
most  exalted  and  most  divine  among  the  works  of  God ; 
and  it  is  in  it  that  the  glory  of  God  really  consists,  for  he 
would  have  no  glory  were  not  his  greatness  and  his  good- 
ness known  and  admired  by  spirits.  It  is  also  in  relation 
to  the  divine  City  that  God  specially  has  goodness,  while 
his  wisdom  and  his  power  are  manifested  everywhere."  J 

1  Monad.,  83-86. 


3i 6       A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

For  Leibniz,  then,  the  mechanical  view  of  the  world, 
and  the  teleological,  are  not  inconsistent  or  competing,  but 
rather  two  aspects  of  the  same  thing.  The  phenomenal 
aspect  of  the  world,  in  terms  of  physical  relations,  is  en- 
tirely legitimate  in  its  own  sphere.  There  can  be  no  inter- 
ference with  its  laws,  since  the  inner  life  of  the  monads, 
of  which  scientific  laws  are  a  phenomenal  transcript,  has 
been  determined  from  the  beginning.  But  now  an- 
other question  presents  itself  to  the  philosopher,  as  distinct 
from  the  scientist.  Granted  that  any  event  can  be  re- 
lated with  mathematical  necessity  to  other  events,  still 
why  should  this  whole  constitution  of  things  be  as  it  is, 
and  not  something  different  ?  To  answer  this  ques- 
tion, we  must  go  back  of  appearance  to  reality,  —  to 
the  inner  life  of  the  monads,  and  the  moral  purpose 
which  is  being  realized  in  the  lives  of  those  monads  who 
have  attained  to  spiritual  self-consciousness.  Such  pur- 
pose is  entirely  harmonious  with  mechanism.  "Things 
lead  to  grace  by  the  very  ways  of  nature,  and  this  globe, 
for  instance,  must  be  destroyed  and  renewed  by  natural 
means,  at  the  very  time  when  the  government  of  spirits 
requires  it,  for  the  punishment  of  some  and  the  reward  of 
others."  1 

This  conception  of  purpose,  also,  is  connected  with 
another  important  doctrine  of  Leibniz.  There  are  two 
different  kinds  of  truths  —  necessary  truths,  and  contin- 
gent. Necessary  truths  follow  with  logical  certainty ; 
they  are  eternal  and  unalterable,  and  even  the  will  of 
God  cannot  make  them  otherwise  than  they  are.  They 
fall,  therefore,  under  the  logical  law  of  contradiction ; 
their  opposite  is  unthinkable.  But  it  is  only  abstract 
truths  that  are  thus  necessary.  When  it  comes  to  truths 
of  fact,  or  existence,  there  is  no  apparent  necessity  in- 
volved. So  far  as  we  can  see,  the  course  of  the  world 
might  have  been  wholly  different  from  what  it  actually 
has  been.  The  particular  facts  of  the  world,  therefore, 

*  Monad.,  88. 


Systems  of  Rationalism  317 

are  contingent,  and  all  that  we  can  do  is  to  find  for  them 
some  sufficient  reason.  Now  this  sufficient  reason  depends 
ultimately  upon  purpose,  or  the  relation  to  moral  ends. 
Our  particular  world  is  only  one  among  an  infinite  number 
that  would  have  been  possible  had  God  so  willed ;  why, 
then,  should  it  exist,  rather  than  any  other  ?  Simply  be- 
cause God  has  chosen,  not  any  world  at  random,  but  the 
best  of  all  possible  worlds  ;  and  such  a  world  is  represented 
by  our  own.  Among  all  the  possibilities  which  pass  before 
his  vision,  God  sees  that  there  is  only  one  combination 
which  will  give  the  greatest  possible  good  and  the  least 
possible  evil ;  and  his  supreme  wisdom  and  perfection  lead 
him  to  choose  this  and  make  it  actual,  rather  than  any 
other  of  the  possibilities  which,  apart  from  the  question 
of  better  or  worse,  would  have  an  equal  right  to  exist. 
"  The  whole  matter  may  be  likened  to  certain  games  in 
which  all  the  spaces  on  a  board  are  to  be  filled  up  accord- 
ing to  definite  rules,  so  that  unless  you  make  use  of  some 
ingenious  contrivance,  you  find  yourself  in  the  end  kept 
out  of  some  refractory  spaces,  and  compelled  to  leave  empty 
more  spaces  than  you  intended,  and  some  of  which  you 
might  otherwise  have  filled."  1  So,  for  God,  the  problem 
is,  how  to  get  a  world  representing  the  greatest  possible 
amount  of  reality,  the  highest  physical  and  moral  perfec- 
tion ;  and  this  "  best  of  all  possible  worlds  "  which  we  find 
existing,  is  the  result. 

Such  a  conception  involves  a  solution  of  the  problem 
of  evil,  which  Leibniz  works  out  most  elaborately  in  his 
Theodicy.  What  appears  to  us  as  evil  is  only  a  neces- 
sary incident  in  the  life  of  the  whole,  which,  if  we  could  but 
see  it  from  the  standpoint  of  the  whole,  we  should  recognize 
as  necessary  to  the  highest  perfection.  "  And,  indeed,  as 
the  lawyers  say,  it  is  not  proper  to  judge  unless  we  have 
examined  the  whole  law.  We  know  a  very  small  part  of 
eternity,  which  is  immeasurable  in  its  extent ;  for  what  a 
little  thing  is  the  record  of  a  few  thousand  years,  which 

1  Ultimate  Origination  of  Things  (p.  341). 


318        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

history  transmits  to  us  !  Nevertheless,  from  so  slight  an 
experience  we  rashly  judge  regarding  the  immeasurable 
and  eternal,  like  men  who,  having  been  born  and  brought 
up  in  prison,  or  perhaps  in  the  subterranean  salt  mines  of 
the  Sarmatians,  should  think  that  there  is  no  other  light  in 
the  world  than  that  of  the  feeble  lamp  which  hardly  suffices 
to  direct  their  steps.  If  you  look  at  a  very  beautiful  pic- 
ture, having  covered  up  the  whole  of  it  except  a  very  small 
part,  what  will  it  present  to  your  sight,  however  thoroughly 
you  examine  it  (nay,  so  much  the  more,  the  more  closely 
you  inspect  it),  but  a  confused  mass  of  colors,  laid  on  with- 
out selection  and  without  art  ?  Yet  if  you  remove  the  cov- 
ering, and  look  at  the  whole  picture  from  the  right  point 
of  view,  you  will  find  that  what  appeared  to  have  been 
carelessly  daubed  on  the  canvas  was  really  done  by  the 
painter  with  very  great  art.  The  experience  of  the  eyes 
in  painting  corresponds  to  that  of  the  ears  in  music.  Emi- 
nent composers  very  often  mingle  discords  with  harmonies, 
so  as  to  stimulate,  and,  as  it  were,  to  prick  the  hearer,  who 
becomes  anxious  as  to  what  is  going  to  happen,  and  is  so 
much  the  more  pleased  when  presently  all  is  restored  to 
order,  just  as  we  take  pleasure  in  small  dangers  or  risks  of 
mishap,  merely  from  the  consciousness  of  our  power  or  our 
luck,  or  from  a  desire  to  make  a  display  of  them ;  or,  again, 
as  we  delight  in  the  show  of  danger  that  is  connected  with 
performances  on  the  tight  rope,  or  sword-dancing ;  and  we 
ourselves  in  jest  half  let  go  a  little  boy,  as  if  about  to  throw 
him  from  us,  like  the  ape  which  carried  Christiern,  king 
of  Denmark,  while  still  an  infant  in  swaddling  clothes,  to 
the  top  of  the  roof,  and  then,  as  in  jest,  relieved  the  anxiety 
of  every  one  by  bringing  him  safely  back  to  his  cradle. 
On  the  same  principle  sweet  things  become  insipid  if  we 
eat  nothing  else  ;  sharp,  tart,  and  even  bitter  things  must 
be  combined  with  them,  so  as  to  stimulate  the  taste.  He 
who  has  not  tasted  bitter  things  does  not  deserve  sweet 
things,  and,  indeed,  will  not  appreciate  them.  This  is  the 
very  law  of  enjoyment,  that  pleasure  does  not  have  an 


Systems  of  Rationalism  319 

even  tenor,  for  this  begets  loathing,  and  makes  us  dull, 
not  happy."  * 

We  cannot  judge,  then,  a  so-called  evil  by  itself.  It 
may  either  be  necessary  to  avoid  still  greater  evils,  or  it 
may  be  justified  as  a  condition  of  attaining  some  positive 
good  that  far  outweighs  it,  as  the  general  of  an  army  will 
prefer  a  great  victory  with  a  slight  wound  to  a  condition 
without  wound  and  without  victory.  Even  if  in  quantity 
the  evil  could  be  shown  to  surpass  the  good,  yet  the  latter 
would  still  make  up  in  quality ;  the  glory  and  perfection 
of  the  blessed  are  incomparably  greater  than  the  misery 
of  the  damned,  since  the  excellence  of  the  total  good  in 
the  lesser  number  exceeds  the  total  evil  in  the  greater 
number.  We  cannot  lay  the  blame  for  evil  upon  God. 
God  is  responsible  for  realities  only  in  so  far  as  they  are 
positive  and  perfect ;  evil  is  a  negative  fact,  which  results 
from  the  necessary  imperfection  and  limitation  of  finite  crea- 
tures. It  is  with  them  as  with  a  loaded  vessel,  which  the 
river  causes  to  move  more  or  less  slowly  according  to  the 
weight  it  carries  ;  its  speed  depends  upon  the  river,  but 
the  retardation  which  limits  this  speed  comes  from  the 
load. 

4.  Theory  of  Knowledge,  —  It  remains  to  mention,  briefly, 
one  other  important  phase  of  Leibniz'  thought.  Nearly  fifty 
years  after  his  death  there  was  published,  for  the  first  time, 
a  work  of  his  entitled  New  Essays  on  the  Human  Under- 
standing. This  contained  an  acute  examination  of  Locke's 
theory  of  knowledge ;  and  so  it  brings  Leibniz  into  direct 
connection  with  the  problem  which  was  presently  to  become 
the  main  problem  of  philosophy.  As  Locke's  theory  still 
remains  to  be  considered,  Leibniz'  criticism  can  only  be 
noticed  here  in  a  very  general  way. 

Locke's  position,  to  anticipate,  was  briefly  this :  that  all 
our  knowledge  comes  from  sense  experience,  and  that  there 
are  no  such  things  as  innate  ideas.  The  mind  is  a  blank 
tablet.  Images  impress  themselves  upon  it  from  external 

1  Ultimate  Origination  of  Things  (p.  346  ) . 


320        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

objects,  and  these  form  the  basis  of  all  our  knowledge. 
Leibniz  opposes  this  whole  conception.  He  does  not, 
indeed,  consider  it  necessary  to  hold  that  universal  truths 
exist  clearly  and  consciously  in  the  mind  at  birth.  He  can 
agree  with  Locke  that,  in  point  of  time,  sensations  come 
first.  But  such  universal  knowledge  exists  implicitly, 
involved  in  the  sensations  themselves,  although  it  is  only 
brought  to  consciousness  by  the  gradual  clearing  up  of 
this  original  confused  sense  experience.  Leibniz'  doctrine 
of  petites  perceptions  enables  him  to  understand  how  a 
thing  may  be  in  the  mind,  in  an  undeveloped  way,  even 
when  we  do  not  seem  to  be  conscious  of  it.  And  universal 
ideas  must  be  there  implicitly,  or  we  never  should  have 
them  at  all.  No  universal  and  necessary  truth  can  pos- 
sibly come  from  mere  sensations.  "  The  senses  never  give 
anything  but  instances,  that  is  to  say,  particular  or  indi- 
vidual truths.  Now  all  the  instances  which  confirm  a 
general  truth,  however  numerous  they  may  be,  are  not 
sufficient  to  establish  the  universal  necessity  of  this  same 
truth ;  for  it  does  not  at  all  follow  that  what  has  happened, 
will  happen  in  the  same  way."  J 

In  general,  then,  Leibniz  goes  back  to  an  entirely  differ- 
ent conception  of  the  mind  from  that  which  Locke  holds. 
Locke  practically  ignores  the  reaction  of  the  mind  itself 
in  knowledge ;  whereas,  for  Leibniz,  this  is  the  one  essen- 
tial thing.  The  mind  is  not  a  mere  passive  recipient  of 
ideas.  There  would  be  no  reality  to  it  if  it  were  not 
already  active,  and  disposed  in  certain  specific  directions. 
Instead  of  everything  being  due  to  the  influence  of  outer 
objects,  there  is  nothing  due  to  this.  According  to  the 
theory  of  monads,  the  entire  life  develops  solely  from 
within,  by  the  laws  of  its  own  nature ;  and  so  sensations 
themselves  are  innate.  It  is  thus  absolutely  necessary 
to  take  into  account,  first  of  all,  the  mind  itself,  with  its 
native  character,  natural  inclinations,  powers,  dispositions. 
"  Accordingly  I  have  taken  as  illustration  a  block  of  veined 

1  New  Essays  (p.  362). 


Systems  of  Rationalism  321 

marble,  rather  than  a  block  of  perfectly  uniform  marble, 
or  than  empty  tablets,  that  is  to  say,  what  is  called  by  phi- 
losophers tabula  rasa.  For  if  the  soul  were  like  these 
empty  tablets,  truths  would  be  in  us  as  the  figure  of  Her- 
cules is  in  a  block  of  marble,  when  the  block  of  marble  is 
indifferently  capable  of  receiving  this  figure  or  any  other. 
But  if  there  were  in  the  stone  veins,  which  should  mark 
out  the  figure  of  Hercules  rather  than  other  figures,  the 
stone  would  be  more  determined  toward  this  figure,  and 
Hercules  would  somehow  be,  as  it  were,  innate  in  it, 
although  labor  would  be  needed  to  uncover  the  veins,  and 
to  clear  them  by  polishing,  and  thus  removing  what  pre- 
vents them  from  being  fully  seen."  1 

» 

LITERATURE 

Leibniz,  Chief  Works:  Discourse  on  Metaphysics  (1685);  New 
System  (1695);  New  Essays  on  the  Human  Understanding  (1704); 
Theodicy  (1710)  ;  Monadology  (1714)  ;  Principles  of  Nature  and  Grace 
(1714).  Translations  :  Latta  (Monadology,  etc.)  ;  Duncan  (Selections')  ; 
Langley  (New  Essays') ;  Montgomery  (Discourse  on  Metaphysics, 
Correspondence  with  Arnauld,  Monadology) . 

Merz,  Leibniz. 

Dewey,  Leibniz1  New  Essays. 

Russell,  A  Critical  Exposition  of  the  Philosophy  of  Leibniz. 

1  New  Essays  (p.  366). 


THE   GROWTH    OF   EMPIRICISM   AND   THE 
ENLIGHTENMENT 

§  31.    Locke 

The  name  of  John  Locke,  the  founder  of  the  new  phi- 
losophy of  Empiricism,  which  Leibniz  had  attacked  in  the 
New  Essays,  stands  for  all  that  is  most  characteristic  in 
English  philosophical  thought,  down  almost  to  the  present 
day.  Locke  was  born  in  Somersetshire  in  1632,  a  period 
marked  by  the  beginning  of  the  struggles  of  the  parliamen- 
tary party  against  Charles  the  First.  He  was  sent  to  Ox- 
ford, where,  however,  the  academic  spirit  was  still  too 
much  dominated  by  Scholasticism  to  arouse  in  him  any 
strong  interest.  Later  he  received  an  appointment  at  the 
University,  and  continued  for  a  number  of  years  in  more 
or  less  close  connection  with  it.  In  1666  he  met  Lord 
Ashley,  afterward  Earl  of  Shaftesbury,  and  one  of  the 
greatest  of  the  statesmen  of  Charles  the  Second's  reign. 
With  him  Locke  entered  into  a  lasting  friendship.  This 
intimacy  brought  him  into  contact  with  public  life,  and 
finally  compelled  him,  on  the  fall  of  his  patron,  to  seek 
refuge  in  Holland.  Here  he  stayed  five  years.  On  the 
accession  of  William  of  Orange,  he  returned  to  England. 
During  the  remainder  of  his  life  he  stood  for  the  most  pro- 
nounced intellectual  force  in  England,  and  he  was  in  con- 
siderable degree  responsible  for  shaping  the  policy  of  the 
new  government.  His  closing  years  were  spent  in  quiet, 
except  for  various  controversies,  mostly  theological,  in 
which  his  writings  had  involved  him.  He  died  in  1704. 

Locke's  attention  was  first  directed  to  the  field  of  phi- 
losophy by  a  chance  incident.  "  Were  it  fit  to  trouble  thee 
with  the  history  of  this  essay,  I  should  tell  thee  that  five 

332 


The  Growth  of  Empiricism  323 

or  six  friends  meeting  at  my  chamber,  and  discoursing  on 
a  subject  very  remote  from  this,  found  themselves  quickly 
at  a  stand  by  the  difficulties  that  rose  on  every  side.  After 
we  had  awhile  puzzled  ourselves,  without  coming  any  nearer 
a  resolution  of  those  doubts  which  perplexed  us,  it  came 
into  my  thoughts  that  we  took  a  wrong  course,  and  that 
before  we  set  ourselves  upon  inquiries  of  that  nature,  it 
was  necessary  to  examine  our  own  abilities,  and  see  what 
objects  our  understandings  were  or  were  not  fitted  to  deal 
with.  This  I  proposed  to  the  company,  who  all  readily 
assented  ;  and  therefore  it  was  agreed  that  this  should  be 
our  first  inquiry.  Some  hasty  and  undigested  thoughts 
on  the  subject  I  had  never  before  considered,  which  I  set 
down  against  our  next  meeting,  gave  the  first  entrance  into 
this  discourse ;  which  having  been  thus  begun  by  chance, 
was  continued  by  entreaty,  written  by  incoherent  parcels, 
and  after  long  intervals  of  neglect  resumed  again,  as  my 
humor  or  occasion  permitted ;  and  at  last,  in  a  retirement 
where  an  attendance  on  my  health  gave  me  leisure,  it  was 
brought  into  that  order  thou  now  seest  it."  l 

It  is  characteristic  of  the  sober  thoroughness  which  dis- 
tinguishes Locke,  that  it  was  twenty  years  before  this 
design  was  finally  completed,  and  the  book  given  to  the 
world.  Indeed,  until  he  was  nearly  sixty  years  old,  he  had 
published  nothing.  It  was  not  till  after  his  return  from 
exile  that  his  principal  works  appeared  in  quick  succession. 
His  writings  include  three  Letters  on  Toleration,  two 
Treatises  on  Government,  Thoughts  on  Ediication,  The 
Reasonableness  of  Christianity,  and  the  Essay  on  the 
Human  Understanding. 

In  all  these  works  the  same  general  aim  is  to  be  found. 
That  aim  is  to  show  the  futility  of  empty  verbiage  and 
idle  acquiescence  in  traditional  opinions  and  assumptions, 
which  take  the  place  of  honest  intellectual  effort  and  in- 
quiry. In  opposition  to  this,  it  strives  to  make  men  use 
their  own  minds,  not  upon  words  but  upon  real  facts,  to 

1  Essay,  Epistle  to  the  Reader,  Vol.  I,  p.  118  (Bohn's  Library). 


324        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

the  intent  that  they  may  be  freed  from  the  weight  of  the 
past,  and  attain  to  a  rationally  grounded  liberty.  And  the 
method  by  which  Locke  thought  to  accomplish  this  result 
was  by  demolishing  the  undue  pretensions  which  the  human 
intellect  is  wont  to  make.  However  competent  it  may 
prove  to  be  for  dealing  with  homely  matters  of  fact  and 
experience,  when  it  aspires  to  a  dogmatic  certainty  about 
higher  things,  it  is  in  reality  making  use  of  words  to  which 
no  definite  and  verifiable  ideas  correspond,  and  so  modesty 
is  its  proper  attitude.  The  Letters  on  Toleration  vindi- 
cate man's  right  to  religious  freedom  just  on  this  ground, 
that  it  is  absurd  to  force  all  men  dogmatically  to  adopt  one 
particular  belief,  when  the  foundations  of  our  knowledge  of 
the  things  which  theology  pretends  to  teach  are  so  unsub- 
stantial. The  Treatises  on  Government,  similarly,  defend 
the  freedom  of  the  citizen  in  the  state  on  the  homely  and 
intelligible  basis  of  expediency  or  utility,  in  opposition  to 
the  unreasoning  faith  which  rests  on  mere  blind  tradition, 
and  expresses  itself  in  the  theory  of  a  divine  right  of  kings. 
As  opposed  to  this,  Locke  made  himself  the  spokesman 
of  the  Revolution  of  1688,  by  arguing  that  government  is 
simply  a  means  for  serving  the  best  interests  of  the  people 
governed.  Government,  as  with  Hobbes,  is  based  upon  a 
contract,  but  this  contract  has  nothing  of  the  rigidity  for 
which  Hobbes  had  argued.  To  retain  old  forms  un- 
changed when  circumstances  have  altered,  is  to  defeat 
the  very  purpose  of  government.  And  if  at  any  time  the 
ruler  is  untrue  to  his  trust,  and  the  advantages  for  the 
sake  of  which  he  was  given  power  are  no  longer  forth- 
coming, authority  reverts  to  the  people,  and  revolution  is 
justified. 

Now  these  practical  aims,  in  behalf  of  freedom  and  rea- 
sonableness, and  against  mere  tradition,  irrationality,  and 
restrictive  forces,  underlie  the  Essay  also.  In  it  Locke  at- 
tempts a  philosophical  justification  of  the  practical  interests 
to  which  he  is  devoted.  He  comes  to  an  examination  of 
the  powers  of  the  human  mind  in  order,  primarily,  to  get  a 


The  Growth  of  Empiricism  325 

weapon  against  political  superstitions,  traditional  dogmas, 
empty  words  divorced  from  things,  and  a  sentimental  and  un- 
reasoning 'enthusiasm.'  "The  commonwealth  of  learning 
is  not  at  this  time  without  master-builders,  whose  mighty 
designs  in  advancing  the  sciences  will  leave  lasting  monu- 
ments to  the  admiration  of  posterity  ;  but  every  one  must 
not  hope  to  be  a  Boyle  or  a  Sydenham ;  and  in  an  age  that 
produces  such  masters  as  the  great  Huy genius,  and  the 
incomparable  Mr.  Newton,  it  is  ambition  enough  to  be 
employed  as  an  under-laborer  in  clearing  the  ground  a 
little,  and  removing  some  of  the  rubbish  that  lies  in  the 
way  to  knowledge;  which  certainly  had  been  very  much 
more  advanced  in  the  world,  if  the  endeavors  of  ingenious 
and  industrious  men  had  not  been  much  cumbered  with 
the  learned  but  frivolous  use  of  uncouth,  affected,  or  unin- 
telligible terms,  introduced  into  the  sciences,  and  there 
made  an  art  of,  to  that  degree  that  philosophy,  which  is 
nothing  but  the  true  knowledge  of  things,  was  thought 
unfit  or  incapable  to  be  brought  into  a  well-bred  company 
and  polite  conversation.  .  .  .  To  break  in  upon  the  sanc- 
tuary of  vanity  and  ignorance  will  be,  I  suppose,  some  ser- 
vice to  human  understanding."  1 

i.   The  Source  of  Knowledge 

I .  The  Aim  of  the  Essay.  — With  this  general  end  in  view, 
what  Locke  will  attempt  will  be  to  "  consider  the  discerning 
faculties  of  a  man,  as  they  are  employed  about  the  objects 
which  they  have  to  do  with.  And  I  shall  imagine  I  have  not 
wholly  misemployed  myself  in  the  thoughts  I  shall  have  on 
this  occasion,  if,  in  this  historical,  plain  method,  I  can  give 
any  account  of  the  ways  whereby  our  understandings  come 
to  attain  those  notions  of  the  things  we  have,  and  can  set 
down  any  measures  of  the  certainty  of  our  knowledge,  or 
the  grounds  of  those  persuasions  which  are  to  be  found 
amongst  men,  so  various,  different,  and  wholly  contradic- 

Ibid.,  p.  121. 


326        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

tory."  J  "  If  by  this  inquiry  into  the  nature  of  the  under- 
standing, I  can  discover  the  powers  thereof,  how  far  they 
reach,  to  what  things  they  are  in  any  degree  proportionate, 
and  where  they  fail  us,  I  suppose  it  may  be  of  use  to  pre- 
vail with  the  busy  mind  of  man  to  be  more  cautious  in 
meddling  with  things  exceeding  its  comprehension ;  to  stop 
when  it  is  at  the  utmost  extent  of  its  tether;  and  to  sit 
down  in  a  quiet  ignorance  of  those  things  which,  upon  ex- 
amination, are  found  to  be  beyond  the  reach  of  our  capaci- 
ties. We  should  not  then  perhaps  be  so  forward,  out  of 
an  affectation  of  a  universal  knowledge,  to  raise  questions, 
and  perplex  ourselves  and  others  with  disputes  about 
things  to  which  our  understandings  are  not  suited,  and  of 
which  we  cannot  frame  in  our  minds  any  clear  or  distinct 
perceptions,  or  whereof  (as  it  has  perhaps  too  often  hap- 
pened) we  have  not  any  notions  at  all."  2 

Nor  have  we  any  right  to  complain  of  this  limitation. 
"  How  short  soever  their  knowledge  may  come  of  an  uni- 
versal or  perfect  comprehension  of  whatsoever  is,  it  yet  se- 
cures their  great  concernments,  that  they  have  light  enough 
to  lead  them  to  the  knowledge  of  their  Maker,  and  the  sight 
of  their  own  duties.  Men  may  find  matter  sufficient  to 
busy  their  heads,  and  employ  their  hands  with  variety,  de- 
light, and  satisfaction,  if  they  will  not  boldly  quarrel  with 
their  own  constitution,  and  throw  away  the  blessings  their 
hands  are  filled  with,  because  they  are  not  big  enough  to 
grasp  everything.  We  shall  not  have  much  reason  to 
complain  of  the  narrowness  of  our  minds,  if  we  will  but 
employ  them  about  what  may  be  of  use  to  us ;  for  of  that 
they  are  very  capable :  and  it  will  be  an  unpardonable,  as 
well  as  childish  peevishness,  if  we  undervalue  the  advan- 
tages of  our  knowledge,  and  neglect  to  improve  it  to  the 
ends  for  which  it  was  given  us,  because  there  are  some 
things  that  are  set  out  of  the  reach  of  it.  It  will  be  no  ex- 
cuse to  an  idle  and  untoward  servant,  who  would  not  attend 
his  business  by  candlelight,  to  plead  that  he  had  not  broad 
1  Bk.  I,  Chap.  I,  2.  3  Bk.  I,  Chap.  I,  4. 


The  Growth  of  Empiricism  327 

sunshine.  The  candle  that  is  set  up  in  us  shines  bright 
enough  for  all  our  purposes.  ...  It  is  of  great  use  to  the 
sailor  to  know  the  length  of  his  line,  though  he  cannot 
with  it  fathom  all  the  depths  of  the  ocean.  It  is  well 
he  knows  that  it  is  long  enough  to  reach  the  bottom  at 
such  places  as  are  necessary  to  direct  his  voyage,  and  cau- 
tion him  against  running  upon  shoals  that  may  ruin  him."1 
2.  No  Innate  Ideas.  —  This,  accordingly,  is  the  purpose  of 
the  essay  —  to  destroy  false  pretensions  of  knowledge,  by 
showing,  through  a  careful  examination  of  the  facts  of  con- 
sciousness, how  our  ideas  originate,  and  what  are  the  criteria 
for  distinguishing  real  knowledge  from  that  which  is  illusory. 
But  before  Locke  can  enter  on  this,  there  is  a  preliminary 
matter  which  he  must  discuss  in  order  to  clear  the  way.  This 
is  the  supposed  existence  of  innate  ideas.  "  When  men  have 
found  some  general  propositions  that  could  not  be  doubted 
of  as  soon  as  understood,  it  was  a  short  and  easy  way  to 
conclude  them  innate.  This  being  once  received,  it  eased 
the  lazy  from  the  pains  of  search,  and  stopped  the  inquiry 
of  the  doubtful  concerning  all  that  was  once  styled  innate. 
And  it  was  of  no  small  advantage  to  those  who  affected  to 
be  masters  and  teachers,  to  make  this  the  principle  of 
principles,  'that  principles  must  not  be  questioned':  for 
having  once  established  this  tenet,  that  there  are  innate 
principles,  it  put  their  followers  upon  a  necessity  of  receiv- 
ing some  doctrines  as  such ;  which  was  to  take  them  off 
from  the  use  of  their  own  reason  and  judgment,  and  put 
them  on  believing  and  taking  them  upon  trust  without 
further  examination :  in  which  posture  of  blind  credulity 
they  might  be  more  easily  governed  by  and  made  useful 
to  some  sort  of  men  who  had  the  skill  and  office  to  princi- 
ple and  guide  them.  Nor  is  it  a  small  power  it  gives  one 
man  over  another,  to  have  the  authority  to  be  the  dictator 
of  principles  and  teacher  of  unquestionable  truths  ;  and  to 
make  a  man  swallow  that  for  an  innate  principle  which 
may  serve  to  his  purpose  who  teacheth  them."2 

i  Bk.  I,  Chap.  I,  5,  6.  2  Bk.  I,  Chap.  IV,  24. 


328         A  Students  History  of  Philosophy 

It  is  a  matter,  therefore,  not  only  of  theoretical,  but  of 
very  great  practical  interest,  to  determine  whether  we  really 
have  ideas  of  this  kind.  First,  accordingly,  Locke  thinks 
it  is  necessary  to  prove  that  there  are  no  such  things  as 
innate  ideas.  "It  is  an  established  principle  amongst  some 
men,  that  there  are  in  the  understanding  certain  innate 
principles;  some  primary  notions,  Koival  evvoiai,  characters, 
as  it  were,  stamped  upon  the  mind  of  man,  which  the  soul 
receives  in  its  very  first  being,  and  brings  into  the  world 
with  it.  It  would  be  sufficient  to  convince  unprejudiced 
readers  of  the  falseness  of  this  supposition,  if  I  should  only 
show  how  men,  barely  by  the  use  of  their  natural  faculties, 
may  attain  to  all  the  knowledge  they  have,  without  the 
help  of  any  innate  impressions,  and  may  arrive  at  certainty, 
without  any  such  original  notions.  For  I  imagine  any  one 
will  easily  grant  that  it  would  be  impertinent  to  suppose  the 
ideas  of  colors  innate  in  a  creature  to  whom  God  hath 
given  sight,  and  a  power  to  receive  them  by  the  eyes  from 
external  objects ;  and  no  less  unreasonable  would  it  be  to 
attribute  several  truths  to  the  impressions  of  nature  and 
innate  characters,  when  we  may  observe  in  ourselves  facul- 
ties fit  to  attain  as  easy  and  certain  knowledge  of  them,  as 
if  they  were  originally  imprinted  on  the  mind.  But  because 
a  man  is  not  permitted  without  censure  to  follow  his  own 
thoughts  in  the  search  of  truth,  when  they  lead  him  ever 
so  little  out  of  the  common  road,  I  shall  set  down  the  rea- 
sons that  made  me  doubt  of  the  truth  of  that  opinion,  as 
an  excuse  for  my  mistake,  if  I  be  in  one."  1 

Now,  what  are  the  arguments  for  the  existence  of  such 
ideas  ?  First,  there  is  the  great  argument  from  the  univer- 
sal assent  of  mankind.  But  it  is  necessary  at  the  start  to 
dispute  the  supposed  facts.  "  I  shall  begin  with  the  specu- 
lative, and  instance  in  those  magnified  principles  of  demon- 
stration, '  whatever  is,  is/  and  '  it  is  impossible  for  the 
same  thing  to  be  and  not  to  be  ' ;  which,  of  all  others,  I 
think  have  the  most  allowed  title  to  innate.  But  yet  I 

i  Bk.  I,  Chap.  II,  i. 


The  Growth  of  Empiricism  329 

take  liberty  to  say  that  these  propositions  are  so  far  from 
having  a  universal  assent,  that  there  are  a  great  part  of 
mankind  to  whom  they  are  not  so  much  as  known." 

"  For,  first,  it  is  evident  that  all  children  and  idiots  have 
not  the  least  apprehension  or  thought  of  them ;  and  the 
want  of  that  is  enough  to  destroy  that  universal  assent 
which  must  needs  be  the  necessary  concomitant  of  all 
innate  truths ;  it  seeming  to  me  near  a  contradiction  to  say 
that  there  are  truths  imprinted  on  the  soul  which  it  per- 
ceives or  understands  not;  imprinting,  if  it  signify  any- 
thing, being  nothing  else  but  the  making  certain  truths 
to  be  perceived.  For  to  imprint  anything  on  the  mind 
without  the  mind's  perceiving  it,  seems  to  me  hardly  in- 
telligible." "That  a  truth  should  be  innate,  and  yet  not 
assented  to,  is  to  me  as  unintelligible  as  for  a  man  to  know 
a  truth  and  be  ignorant  of  it  at  the  same  time.  But  then, 
by  these  men's  own  confession,  they  cannot  be  innate,  since 
they  are  not  assented  to  by  those  who  understand  not  the 
terms,  nor  by  a  great  part  of  those  who  do  understand 
them,  but  have  yet  never  heard  nor  thought  of  those  prop- 
ositions; which,  I  think,  is  at  least  one  half  of  mankind." 

"  But  that  I  may  not  be  accused  to  argue  from  the 
thoughts  of  infants,  and  to  conclude  from  what  passes  in 
their  understandings  before  they  express  it,  I  say  next, 
that  these  two  general  propositions  are  not  the  truths 
that  first  possess  the  minds  of  children,  nor  are  antecedent 
to  all  acquired  and  adventitious  notions;  which,  if  they 
were  innate,  they  must  needs  be.  .  .  .  The  child  certainly 
knows  that  the  nurse  that  feeds  it  is  neither  the  cat  it 
plays  with,  nor  the  blackmoor  it  is  afraid  of ;  that  the 
wormseed  or  mustard  it  refuses  is  not  the  apple  or  sugar 
it  cries  for,  this  it  is  certainly  and  undoubtedly  assured 
of :  but  will  any  one  say,  it  is  by  virtue  of  this  principle, 
4  that  it  is  impossible  for  the  same  thing  to  be  and  not 
to  be,'  that  it  so  firmly  assents  to  these  and  other  parts  of 
its  knowledge  ?  He  that  will  say,  children  join  in  these 
general  abstract  speculations  with  their  sucking  bottles 


330       A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

and  their  rattles,  may  perhaps,  with  justice,  be  thought 
to  have  more  passion  and  zeal  for  his  opinion,  but  less 
sincerity  and  truth,  than  one  of  that  age." 1 

There  is  thus  no  universal  assent  to  such  ideas.  More- 
over, these  instances  just  given  are  just  the  ones  where 
they  ought  to  show  most  clearly.  "These  characters,  if 
they  were  native  and  original  impressions,  should  appear 
fairest  and  clearest  in  those  persons  in  whom  yet  we  find 
no  footsteps  of  them;  and  it  is,  in  my  opinion,  a  strong 
presumption  that  they  are  not  innate,  since  they  are  least 
known  to  those  in  whom,  if  they  were  innate,  they  must 
needs  exert  themselves  with  most  force  and  vigor.  For 
children,  idiots,  savages,  and  illiterate  people,  being  of  all 
others  the  least  corrupted  by  custom  or  borrowed  opinions, 
learning  and  education  having  not  cast  their  native  thoughts 
into  new  moulds,  nor  by  superinducing  foreign  and  studied 
doctrines,  confounded  those  fair  characters  nature  had 
written  there,  one  might  reasonably  imagine  that  in  their 
minds  these  innate  notions  should  lie  open  fairly  to  every 
one's  view,  as  it  is  certain  the  thoughts  of  children  do.  .  .  . 
But  alas,  amongst  children,  idiots,  savages,  and  the  grossly 
illiterate,  what  general  maxims  are  to  be  found?  A  child 
knows  his  nurse  and  his  cradle,  and  by  degrees  the  play- 
things of  a  little  more  advanced  age ;  and  a  young  savage 
has,  perhaps,  his  head  filled  with  love  and  hunting,  accord- 
ing to  the  fashion  of  his  tribe.  But  he  that  from  a  child 
untaught,  or  a  wild  inhabitant  of  the  woods,  will  expect 
these  abstract  maxims,  will,  I  fear,  find  himself  mistaken. 
Such  kind  of  general  propositions  are  seldom  mentioned  in 
the  huts  of  the  Indians,  much  less  are  they  to  be  found 
in  the  thoughts  of  children,  or  any  impressions  of  them  on 
the  minds  of  naturals."  2 

To  avoid  the  difficulty,  it  may  be  said  that  men  know 
these  truths  when  they  come  to  the  use  of  the  reason.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  however,  the  time  of  coming  to  the  use  of 
the  reason  is  not  necessarily  the  time  we  come  to  know 

1  Bk.  I,  Chap.  II,  4,  5,  24,  25.  2  Bk.  I,  Chap.  II,  27. 


The  Growth  of  Empiricism  331 

these  maxims;  and  even  if  it  were,  it  would  not  prove 
them  innate.  "  For  by  what  kind  of  logic  will.it  appear 
that  any  notion  is  originally  by  nature  imprinted  in  the 
mind  in  its  first  constitution,  because  it  comes  first  to  be 
observed  and  assented  to  when  a  faculty  of  the  mind,  which 
has  quite  a  distinct  province,  begins  to  exert  itself  ?  "  1 
It  is  equally  irrelevant  to  say  that  they  are  assented  to  as 
soon  as  they  are  proposed  and  understood.  "  By  the  same 
reason,  all  propositions  that  are  true,  and  the  mind  is 
capable  of  ever  assenting  to,  may  be  said  to  be  in  the  mind, 
and  to  be  imprinted :  since,  if  any  one  can  be  said  to  be  in 
the  mind,  which  it  never  yet  knew,  it  must  be  only  because 
it  is  capable  of  knowing  it,  and  so  the  mind  is  of  all  truths 
it  ever  shall  know."  If  such  an  assent  be  a  mark  of  innate, 
then  "  that  one  and  two  are  equal  to  three,  that  sweetness 
is  not  bitterness,  and  a  thousand  the  like,  must  be  innate." 
"  Nay,  thus  truths  may  be  imprinted  on  the  mind  which 
it  never  did  nor  ever  shall  know  ;  for  a  man  may  live  long, 
and  die  at  last  in  ignorance  of  many  truths  which  his  mind 
was  capable  of  knowing,  and  that  with  certainty.  So  that 
if  the  capacity  of  knowing  be  the  natural  impression  con- 
tended for,  all  the  truths  a  man  ever  comes  to  know  will, 
by  this  account,  be  every  one  of  them  innate ;  and  this 
great  point  will  amount  to  no  more,  but  only  to  a  very  im- 
proper way  of  speaking ;  which,  whilst  it  pretends  to 
assert  the  contrary,  says  nothing  different  from  those  who 
deny  innate  principles.  For  nobody,  I  think,  ever  denied 
that  the  mind  was  capable  of  knowing  several  truths."2 

In  a  similar  way,  Locke  goes  on  to  show  that  there  are 
no  innate  practical  or  moral  principles ;  there  are  none 
which  are  universally  received  by  all  men.  An  examina- 
tion of  moral  customs  will  show  that  there  is  no  rule  of 
right  and  justice  which  is  not  openly  violated  by  some 
nation,  and  the  violation  approved  by  the  public  con- 
science. The  general  resemblance  in  the  conceptions  of 
virtue  in  different  countries,  and  the  general  approval  of  it, 

1  Bk.  I,  Chap.  II,  14.  2  Bk.  I,  Chap.  II,  5. 


332        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

are  due  to  the  fact,  not  that  virtue  is  innate,  but  that  it  is 
profitable.  And,  finally,  to  clinch  the  whole  argument, 
Locke  points  out  that  no  proposition  can  be  innate,  unless 
the  ideas  of  which  it  is  composed  are  innate.  "  Whatever 
we  talk  of  innate  principles,  it  may  with  as  much  proba- 
bility be  said  that  a  man  hath  £  100  sterling  in  his  pocket, 
and  yet  denied  that  he  hath  either  penny,  shilling,  crown, 
or  other  coin  out  of  which  the  sum  is  to  be  made  up,  as  to 
think  that  certain  propositions  are  innate,  when  the  ideas 
about  which  they  are  can  by  no  means  be  supposed  to  be 
so  ;  "J  and  this  can  be  shown  to  be  true  of  the  ideas  in  all 
the  propositions  for  which  any  claim  to  innateness  has 
been  made. 

3.  All  Knowledge  from  Experience.  —  With  innate  ideas 
out  of  the  way,  Locke  can  go  on  to  the  positive  part  of  his 
work.  And  there  are  two  main  divisions  of  this.  The  first 
has  to  do  with  the  way  in  which  we  come  by  our  ideas,  since 
they  are  not  born  in  us.  When,  however,  an  idea  is  once  in 
the  mind,  its  mere  existence  there  still  does  not  involve  the 
question  of  truth  or  error.  This  arises  only  in  connection 
with  the  relation  of  ideas  to  one  another,  and  so  forms  a  sepa- 
rate inquiry.  And  to  the  first  of  these  problems,  the  answer 
is  unambiguous.  "  Every  man  being  conscious  to  himself 
that  he  thinks,  and  that  which  his  mind  is  applied  about 
whilst  thinking,  being  the  ideas  that  are  there,  it  is  past 
doubt  that  men  have  in  their  minds  several  ideas,  such  as  are 
those  expressed  by  the  words  whiteness,  hardness,  sweet- 
ness, thinking,  motion,  man,  elephant,  army,  drunkenness, 
and  others.  It  is  in  the  first  place,  then,  to  be  inquired 
how  he  comes  by  them.  .  .  .  Let  us  then  suppose  the 
mind  to  be  white  paper,  void  of  all  characters,  without  any 
ideas ;  how  comes  it  to  be  furnished  ?  Whence  comes  it 
by  that  vast  store  which  the  busy  and  boundless  fancy  of 
man  has  painted  on  it  with  an  almost  endless  variety  ? 
Whence  has  it  all  the  materials  of  reason  and  knowledge  ? 
To  this  I  answer  in  one  word,  from  experience;  in  that 

1  Bk.  I,  Chap.  IV,  19. 


The  Growth  of  Empiricism  333 

all  our  knowledge  is  founded,  and  from  that  it  ultimately 
derives  itself.  Our  observation,  employed  either  about 
external  sensible  objects,  or  about  the  internal  operations 
of  our  minds,  perceived  and  reflected  on  by  ourselves,  is 
that  which  supplies  our  understandings  with  all  the  mate- 
rials of  thinking.  These  two  are  the  fountains  of  knowl- 
edge, from  whence  all  the  ideas  we  have,  or  can  naturally 
have,  do  spring."  1 

The  source  of  our  knowledge  of  external  objects  is 
called  Sensation.  The  other  fountain,  the  perception  of 
the  operations  of  our  own  mind  within  us,  as  it  is  em- 
ployed about  the  ideas  it  has  got,  is  called  Reflection. 
"  These,  when  we  have  taken  a  full  survey  of  them,  and 
their  several  modes,  combinations,  and  relations,  we  shall 
find  to  contain  all  our  whole  stock  of  ideas."  *'  These 
alone,  so  far  as  I  can  discover,  are  the  windows  by  which 
light  is  let  into  this  dark  room ;  for  methinks  the  under- 
standing is  not  much  unlike  a  closet  wholly  shut  from 
light,  with  only  some  little  opening  left,  to  let  in  external 
visible  resemblances,  or  ideas  of  things  without :  would  the 
pictures  coming  into  such  a  dark  room  but  stay  there,  and 
lie  so  orderly  as  to  be  found  upon  occasion,  it  would  very 
much  resemble  the  understanding  of  a  man,  in  reference 
to  all  objects  of  sight,  and  the  ideas  of  them."2  "Thus 
the  first  capacity  of  human  intellect  is,  that  the  mind  is 
fitted  to  receive  the  impressions  made  on  it,  either  through 
the  senses  by  outer  objects,  or  by  its  own  operations  when 
it  reflects  on  them.  This  is  the  first  step  a  man  makes 
toward  the  discovery  of  anything,  and  the  groundwork 
whereon  to  build  all  those  notions  which  ever  he  shall 
have  naturally  in  this  world.  All  those  sublime  thoughts 
which  tower  above  the  clouds,  and  reach  as  high  as  heaven 
itself,  take  their  rise  and  footing  here :  in  all  that  good 
extent  wherein  the  mind  wanders,  in  those  remote  specula- 
tions it  may  seem  to  be  elevated  with,  it  stirs  not  one  jot 
beyond  those  ideas  which  sense  or  reflection  has  offered 

1  Bk.  II,  Chap.  I,  I,  2.  *  Bk.  II,  Chap.  XI,  17. 


234        A  Students  History  of  Philosophy 

for  its  contemplation." J  Ideas  can,  it  is  true,  be  com- 
bined in  various  new  ways;  but  every  element  in  these 
complex  ideas  still  comes  to  us  from  one  of  the  two 
sources.  "  It  is  not  in  the  power  of  the  most  exalted  wit, 
or  enlarged  understanding,  by  any  quickness  or  variety  of 
thought,  to  invent  or  frame  one  new  simple  idea  in  the 
mind,  not  taken  in  by  the  ways  before  mentioned :  nor  can 
any  force  of  the  understanding  destroy  those  that  are 
there."2  If,  then,  we  can  analyze  a  supposed  idea  into 
these  simple  components,  we  have  the  means  of  testing  it, 
and  of  ridding  ourselves  of  the  domination  of  mere  words, 
to  which  no  ideas  correspond. 

4.  Simple  Ideas.  —  Accordingly,  in  order  to  make  good 
his  position,  Locke  is  bound  to  give  an  account  of  the  whole 
stock  of  our  ideas,  arrange  and  classify  them,  and  make  it 
evident  that  there  is  none  whose  origin  in  experience  cannot 
be  clearly  shown.  Evidently,  the  most  general  division  will 
be  into  Simple  and  Complex  Ideas,  —  the  elements  of  our 
thought  which  come  to  us  passively  through  sensation  and 
reflection,  and  the  various  combinations  which  these  may 
assume.  Upon  simple  ideas,  Locke  does  not  have  to  dwell 
very  long.  They  are  subdivided  into  ideas  which  come  into 
our  minds  from  one  sense  only ;  those  which  come  from 
more  senses  than  one ;  those  that  are  had  from  reflection 
only ;  and  those  that  are  suggested  to  the  mind  by  all  the 
ways  of  sensation  and  reflection.  Sounds,  colors,  tastes,  and 
smells,  solidity,  heat  and  cold,  are  examples  of  the  first  class. 
Belonging  to  the  second  division  are  ideas  of  space  or 
extension,  figure,  rest,  and  motion,  which  are  received  both 
through  sight  and  touch.  By  reflection  we  get  the  ideas 
of  perception  and  of  volition.  The  last  division  includes 
the  notions  of  pleasure,  pain,  power,  existence,  unity,  and 
succession.  Thus,  pleasure  or  pain  join  themselves  to 
almost  all  our  ideas,  both  of  sensation  and  reflection ;  the 
idea  of  unity  is  suggested  by  whatever  we  can  consider  as 
one  thing,  whether  a  real  being  or  an  idea ;  power  is  involved 

*  Bk.  II,  Chap.  I,  24.  »  Bk.  II,  Chap.  II,  2. 


The  Growth  of  Empiricism  335 

alike  in  the  ability  which  we  find  in  ourselves  to  move  the 
various  parts  of  our  bodies,  and  in  the  effects  which  mate- 
rial objects  have  on  one  another.  These  classes  include 
all  the  possible  ingredients  of  our  knowledge.  "  Nor  let 
any  one  think  these  too  narrow  bounds  for  the  capacious 
mind  of  man  to  expatiate  in,  which  takes  its  flight  farther 
than  the  stars,  and  cannot  be  confined  by  the  limits  of  the 
world;  that  extends  its  thoughts  often  even  beyond  the 
utmost  expansion  of  matter,  and  makes  excursions  into 
the  incomprehensible  inane.  It  will  not  be  so  strange  to 
think  these  few  simple  ideas  sufficient  to  employ  the  quick- 
est thought  or  largest  capacity,  if  we  consider  how  many 
words  may  be  made  out  of  the  various  composition  of 
twenty-four  letters,  or  if  we  will  but  reflect  on  the  variety 
of  combinations  that  may  be  made  with  barely  one  of  the 
above-mentioned  ideas,  viz.,  number,  whose  stock  is  inex- 
haustible and  truly  infinite."  l 

Before  going  on  to  speak  of  complex  ideas,  however, 
one  point  needs  a  special  mention.  Besides  their  exist- 
ence in  the  mind,  many  of  these  simple  ideas  are  also 
referred  to  the  external  world,  where  they  are  supposed 
somehow  to  belong  to  things.  Color,  for  example,  is  com- 
monly regarded  as  at  once  a  sensation,  and  an  attribute  of 
objects.  In  order  to  avoid  confusion  between  the  mental 
existence  of  ideas,  and  those  physical  facts  which  are  sup- 
posed to  give  rise  to  them,  it  is  well  to  call  these  latter, 
not  ideas,  but  qualities.  But  among  these  there  is  an 
important  distinction.  Certain  qualities  are  entirely  in- 
separable from  a  body,  whatever  its  state  ;  these  are  called 
original,  or  primary  qualities,  and  include  solidity,  exten- 
sion, figure,  motion,  and  number.  "  Secondly,  such  quali- 
ties which  in  truth  are  nothing  in  the  objects  themselves, 
but  powers  to  produce  various  sensations  in  us  by  their 
primary  qualities,  i.e.,  by  the  bulk,  figure,  texture,  and 
motion  of  their  insensible  parts,  as  colors,  sounds,  tastes, 
etc.,  these  I  call  secondary  qualities." 

1  Bk.  II,  Chap.  VII,  10. 


336         A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

Now,  whereas  "  the  ideas  of  primary  qualities  of  bodies 
are  resemblances  of  them,  and  their  patterns  do  really  exist 
in  the  bodies  themselves,  the  ideas  produced  in  us  by  these 
secondary  qualities  have  no  resemblance  of  them  at  all. 
There  is  nothing  like  our  ideas  existing  in  the  bodies 
themselves.  They  are,  in  the  bodies  we  denominate 
from  them,  only  a  power  to  produce  those  sensations  in 
us ;  and  what  is  sweet,  blue,  or  warm  in  idea,  is  but  the 
certain  bulk,  figure,  and  motion  of  the  insensible  parts  in 
the  bodies  themselves.  Flame  is  denominated  hot  and 
light ;  snow,  white  and  cold ;  and  manna,  white  and 
sweet,  from  the  ideas  they  produce  in  us ;  which  qualities 
are  commonly  thought  to  be  the  same  in  those  bodies  that 
those  ideas  are  in  us,  the  one  the  perfect  resemblance  of 
the  other,  as  they  are  in  a  mirror ;  and  it  would  by  most 
men  be  judged  very  extravagant  if  one  should  say  other- 
wise. And  yet  he  that  will  consider  that  the  same  fire 
that  at  one  distance  produces  in  us  the  sensation  of 
warmth,  does  at  a  nearer  approach  produce  in  us  the  far 
different  sensation  of  pain,  ought  to  bethink  himself  what 
reason  he  has  to  say  that  this  idea  of  warmth,  which  was 
produced  in  him  by  the  fire,  is  actually  in  the  fire ;  and  his 
idea  of  pain,  which  the  same  fire  produced  in  him  the  same 
way,  is  not  in  the  fire.  Why  are  whiteness  and  coldness 
in  snow,  and  pain  not,  when  it  produces  the  one  and  the 
other  idea  in  us ;  and  can  do  neither,  but  by  the  bulk, 
figure,  number,  and  motion  of  its  solid  parts  ?  The  par- 
ticular bulk,  number,  figure,  and  motion  of  the  parts  of 
fire  or  snow  are  really  in  them,  whether  any  one's  senses 
perceive  them  or  not,  and  therefore  they  may  be  called 
real  qualities,  because  they  really  exist  in  those  bodies ; 
but  light,  heat,  whiteness,  or  coldness,  are  no  more  really 
in  them  than  sickness  or  pain  in  the  manna.  Take  away 
the  sensation  of  them ;  let  not  the  eye  see  light  or  colors, 
nor  the  ears  hear  sound ;  let  the  palate  not  taste,  nor  the 
nose  smell ;  and  all  colors,  tastes,  odors,  and  sounds,  as 
they  are  such  particular  ideas,  vanish  and  cease,  and  are 


The  Growth  of  Empiricism  337 

reduced  to  their  causes,  i.e.,   bulk,  figure,  and  motion  of 
parts."1 

5.  Complex  Ideas.  —  To  return,  then,  it  is  self-evident  to 
Locke  that,  of  the  simple  ideas,  the  mind  cannot  possibly 
frame  one,  until  it  has  been  presented  by  experience.  "  If 
a  child  were  kept  in  a  place  where  he  never  saw  any  other 
but  black  and  white  till  he  were  a  man,  he  would  have  no 
more  ideas  of  scarlet  or  green,  than  he  that  from  his  child- 
hood never  tasted  an  oyster  or  a  pineapple  has  of  those 
particular  relishes."  2  So  far  the  mind  has  been  passive. 
But  now  it  also  has  power,  after  it  has  received  these  simple 
ideas,  to  act  upon  them  in  various  ways.  "  The  acts  of  the 
mind,  wherein  it  exerts  its  power  over  its  simple  ideas,  are 
chiefly  these  three  :  I.  Combining  several  simple  ideas  into 
one  compound  one,  and  thus  all  complex  ideas  are  made. 

2.  The  second  is  bringing  two  ideas,  whether  simple  or 
complex,  together,  and  setting  them  by  one  another  so 
as  to  take  a  view  of  them  at  once,  without  uniting  them 
into  one,  by  which  way  it  gets  all  its  ideas  of  relations. 

3.  The  third  is  separating  them  from  all  other  ideas  that 
accompany  them  in  their  real  existence :   this   is   called 
abstraction,  and   thus  all   its  general  ideas  are  made."3 

All  possible  combinations  of  ideas  can  be  brought  under 
three  heads  :  Modes,  Substances,  and  Relations.  Modes 
are  "  complex  ideas  which,  however  compounded,  contain 
not  in  them  the  supposition  of  subsisting  by  themselves, 
but  are  considered  as  dependencies  on,  or  affections  of, 
substances  ;  such  as  are  ideas  signified  by  the  words  tri- 
angle, gratitude,  murder,  etc."  Of  these  modes  there  are 
two  kinds.  Simple  modes  are  those  which  are  "only 
variations  or  different  combinations  of  the  same  simple 
idea,  without  the  mixture  of  any  other;  as  a  dozen  or 
score,  which  are  nothing  but  the  ideas  of  so  many  dis- 
tinct units  added  together."  Mixed  modes  are  com- 
pounded of  simple  ideas  of  several  kinds;  e.g.,  "beauty, 

1  Bk.  II,  Chap.  VIII,  10,  15.       2  Bk.  II,  Chap.  I,  6. 
8  Bk.  II,  Chap.  XII,  I. 


338        A  Students  History  of  Philosophy 

consisting  of  a  certain  composition  of  color  and  figure, 
causing  delight  in  the  beholder." 

"  Secondly,  the  ideas  of  Substances  are  such  combina- 
tions of  simple  ideas  as  are  taken  to  represent  distinct 
particular  things  subsisting  by  themselves,  in  which  the 
supposed  or  confused  idea  of  substance,  such  as  it  is,  is 
always  the  first  and  chief.  Thus,  if  to  substance  be  joined 
the  simple  idea  of  a  certain  dull  whitish  color,  with  certain 
degrees  of  weight,  hardness,  ductility,  and  fusibility,  we 
have  the  idea  of  lead."  "  Thirdly,  the  last  sort  of  complex 
ideas,  is  that  we  call  Relation,  which  consists  in  the  consid- 
eration and  comparing  one  idea  with  another."  1  Such  are 
the  ideas  of  cause,  of  spatial  and  temporal  relations,  of 
identity  and  diversity,  and  the  like.  From  this  point  of 
view,  Locke  goes  on  to  show,  in  detail,  that  all  the  terms 
of  which  metaphysics  has  made  so  much,  and  which  have 
been  thought  to  be  too  exalted  to  have  grown  out  of  every- 
day experience  —  even  the  idea  of  God  itself  —  can  be 
brought  back  to  perfectly  definite  simple  ideas,  in  so  far 
as  they  have  any  meaning  at  all. 

6.  Criticism.  —  Before  going  on,  it  may  be  well  to  sug- 
gest, briefly,  the  limitations  of  Locke's  discussion.  Locke 
has  an  entirely  definite  and  straightforward  thesis  to  estab- 
lish. He  intends  to  show  that  we  have  no  knowledge 
which  does  not  arise  in  connection  with  sense  experience ; 
in  other  words,  that  we  do  not  come  into  the  world  with 
ready-made  truths  in  our  minds.  And  if  this  is  his  con- 
tention, it  may  surely  be  granted  that  he  has  made  out  his 
case.  But  is  this  really  the  important  point?  Might  not 
a  judicious  opponent  be  content  to  admit  that  all  truths 
come  to  our  knowledge  only  in  the  course  of  experience, 
and  still  maintain  that  there  are  certain  truths  which  may 
properly  be  called  innate  ? 

Take,  for  example,  the  supposed  truth  that  every  event 
must  have  a  cause.  There  is  a  sense  in  which  this  is 
derived  from  experience.  It  could  not  very  well  be  sup- 
i  Bk.  II,  Chap.  XII,  4-7. 


The  Growth  of  Empiricism  339 

posed  to  be  in  the  mind  of  any  one  who  had  not  witnessed 
instances  of  causation.  But  in  spite  of  this,  if  it  really  is 
true  that  every  event  must  have  a  cause,  in  the  future  as 
well  as  in  the  past,  we  are  going  entirely  beyond  the  bare 
facts  of  experience  in  the  statement.  All  that  mere  ex- 
perience could  possibly  tell  us  would  be,  that  certain 
particular  events  in  the  past  have  had  a  cause.  There  is 
a  distinction  between  a  truth's  coming  to  consciousness 
in  connection  with  experience,  and  its  being  wholly 
summed  up  in  the  experience  in  connection  with  which 
it  appears.  If,  therefore,  there  are  truths  that  are  neces- 
sarily and  universally  true,  they  must  be  due  to  some 
capacity  of  the  mind  that  goes  beyond  the  mere  collection 
of  its  past  experiences.  Now,  Locke  himself  admits  the 
existence  of  such  truths,  as,  e.g.,  causation.  There  are 
depths  to  the  problem,  accordingly,  which  Locke  does  not 
begin  to  sound.  It  will  be  necessary  to  define,  much  more 
closely  than  Locke  does,  what  the  vague  word  "experi- 
ence "  really  means ;  and  this  was  left  to  Locke's  succes- 
sors, particularly  to  Hume  and  Kant. 

2.   Nature  and  Extent  of  Knowledge 

I.  Nature  and  Degrees  of  Knowledge. —  Having  thus 
examined  the  source  of  our  ideas,  it  is  still  necessary  to 
consider  what  these  ideas  tell  us  in  the  way  of  truth. 
Now,  "  since  the  mind,  in  all  its  thoughts  and  reasonings, 
hath  no  other  immediate  object  but  its  own  ideas,  which 
it  alone  does  or  can  contemplate,  it  is  evident  that  our 
knowledge  is  only  conversant  about  them.  Knowledge, 
then,  seems  to  be  nothing  but  the  perception  of  the  con- 
nection and  agreement,  or  disagreement  and  repugnancy, 
of  any  of  our  ideas.  In  this  alone  it  consists.  Where 
this  perception  is,  there  is  knowledge ;  and  where  it  is 
not,  there,  though  we  may  fancy,  guess,  or  believe,  yet  we 
always  come  short  of  knowledge."  1 

i  Bk.  IV,  Chap.  I,  I,  2. 


340        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

The  varying  clearness  of  our  knowledge  lies  in  the 
different  way  of  perception  the  mind  has  of  the  agree- 
ment or  disagreement  of  its  ideas.  Sometimes  "  the  mind 
perceives  the  agreement  or  disagreement  of  two  ideas 
immediately  by  themselves,  without  the  intervention  of 
any  other;  and  this  we  may  call  intuitive  knowledge. 
Thus  the  mind  perceives  that  white  is  not  black,  that  a 
circle  is  not  a  triangle,  that  three  are  more  than  two.  .  .  . 
This  part  of  knowledge  is  irresistible,  and,  like  bright  sun- 
shine, forces  itself  immediately  to  be  perceived,  as  soon  as 
ever  the  mind  turns  its  view  that  way  ;  and  leaves  no  room 
for  hesitation,  doubt,  or  examination,  but  the  mind  is  pres- 
ently filled  with  the  clear  light  of  it.  He  that  demands 
a  greater  certainty  than  this,  demands  he  knows  not  what, 
and  shows  only  that  he  has  a  mind  to  be  a  sceptic,  without 
being  able  to  be  so."  The  next  degree  of  knowledge  is, 
where  the  mind  perceives  the  agreement  or  disagreement 
of  any  of  its  ideas,  but  not  immediately ;  this  is  demon- 
strative knowledge.  "  Thus  the  mind  being  willing  to 
know  the  agreement  or  disagreement  in  bigness  between 
the  three  angles  of  a  triangle  and  two  right  ones,  cannot 
by  an  immediate  view  and  comparing  them  do  it.  In  this 
case  the  mind  is  fain  to  find  out  some  other  angles,  to 
which  the  three  angles  of  a  triangle  have  an  equality ; 
and,  finding  those  equal  to  two  right  ones,  comes  to  know 
their  equality  to  two  right  ones."1  A  third  degree  of  cer- 
tainty, which  also  passes,  though  with  less  justification, 
under  the  name  of  knowledge,  will  be  considered  presently 
in  connection  with  sensitive  knowledge. 

2.  Knowledge  of  Real  Existence.  —  But  now,  if  knowl- 
edge is  only  of  the  connection  between  our  own  ideas,  does 
it  not  become  purely  subjective,  arbitrary,  and  unreal  ? 
"It  is  evident  that  the  mind  knows  not  things  immedi- 
ately, but  only  by  the  intervention  of  the  ideas  it  has  of 
them.  Our  knowledge,  therefore,  is  real  only  so  far  as 
there  is  a  conformity  between  our  ideas  and  the  reality  of 

1  Bk.  IV,  Chap.  II,  i,  2. 


TJie  Growth  of  Empiricism  341 

things.  But  what  shall  be  here  the  criterion  ?  How  shall 
the  mind,  when  it  perceives  nothing  but  its  own  ideas, 
know  that  they  agree  with  things  themselves?"1  Later 
on  this  question  attains  a  preeminent  importance,  and  leads 
to  strange  results.  Locke,  however,  does  not  appreciate 
all  its  difficulty,  and  slips  over  it  rather  easily.  It  never 
occurs  to  him  to  doubt  that  there  is  a  real  world,  and  that 
we  can,  to  an  extent  at  least,  know  it.  And  so,  although 
apparently  in  defiance  of  his  definition  of  knowledge,  he 
adds  now  another  conception  —  the  agreement  of  our  ideas 
with  the  real  things  to  which  they  refer.  We  may  have 
an  assurance  or  conviction  that  such  a  reality  exists,  to 
which  our  ideas  correspond ;  and  in  this  case  we  have  not 
only  certain,  but  real  knowledge. 

Now  there  is  a  kind  of  knowledge  that  also  may  fairly 
be  termed  real,  not  because  it  agrees  with  an  external 
archetype,  but  because  it  does  not  pretend  to  refer  to  any- 
thing beyond  itself ;  and  so  there  can  be  no  question  of 
a  lack  of  correspondence.  "  All  our  complex  ideas,  except 
those  of  substances,  being  archetypes  of  the  mind's  own 
making,  not  intended  to  be  the  copies  of  anything,  nor 
referred  to  the  existence  of  anything,  as  to  their  originals, 
cannot  want  any  conformity  necessary  to  real  knowledge."2 
All  our  abstract  knowledge,  as  opposed  to  that  which  deals 
with  facts  —  and  most  of  the  statements  of  necessary 
truth  are  merely  abstract  —  is  concerned  with  such  ideas. 
Mathematics  is  one  of  the  best  instances  of  this.  In 
mathematics  we  are  dealing  only  with  ideas  which  we  have 
ourselves  formed,  and  whose  truth  is  entirely  independent 
of  whether  or  not  there  happen  to  be  any  real  objects  in 
the  world.  But  such  knowledge  is  after  all  not  strictly  real ; 
there  is  no  disagreement,  only  because  there  is  no  object 
with  which  to  disagree.  When,  however,  we  turn  to  ideas 
of  substances,  a  new  factor  comes  in.  This  is  the  idea 
of  real  existence,  which  brings  us  back  to  real  knowledge  in 
the  stricter  sense. 

1  Bk.  IV,  Chap.  IV,  3.  2  Bk.  IV,  Chap.  IV,  5. 


342        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

There  are  three  kinds  of  substances  of  which  we  may 
have  a  real  knowledge.  We  have  the  knowledge  of  our 
own  existence  by  intuition  ;  we  perceive  it  so  plainly  and 
so  certainly,  that  it  neither  needs,  nor  is  capable  of,  any 
proof.  Of  the  existence  of  God,  we  have  a  demonstrative 
knowledge.  The  proof  of  God  is,  briefly,  this  :  We  know 
that  something  exists,  since  we  are  sure  of  our  own  exist- 
ence; and  we  know,  also,  that  something  must  have  existed 
from  eternity,  since  we  are  intuitively  certain  that  bare 
nothing  can  no  more  produce  any  real  being,  than  it  can 
be  equal  to  two  right  angles.  Again,  it  is  evident,  in  the 
case  of  any  derived  being,  that  it  must  have  received 
everything  it  possesses  from  the  reality  from  which  it  is 
derived.  Since,  therefore,  we  possess  powers,  perception, 
knowledge,  all  these  things  must  be  present  in  still  greater 
measure  in  the  eternal  reality  from  which  we  spring ;  and 
we  can  know,  therefore,  that  a  supremely  powerful,  know- 
ing, and  intelligent  being  exists.  Otherwise  there  must 
have  been  a  time  when  knowledge  did  not  exist ;  and  in 
that  case,  it  never  could  have  come  into  being. 

Finally,  we  can  have  a  knowledge  of  material  things 
through  sensation ;  which,  if  it  fails  of  being  as  sure  as 
our  knowledge  of  ourselves  and  of  God,  is  still  practically 
certain.  "  For  I  think  nobody  can,  in  earnest,  be  so 
sceptical  as  to  be  uncertain  of  the  existence  of  those  things 
which  he  sees  and  feels."  This  assurance  is  confirmed  by 
various  arguments.  First,  it  is  plain  that  these  perceptions 
are  produced  in  us  by  exterior  causes  affecting  our  senses ; 
because  those  to  whom  any  organ  is  lacking,  never  have 
the  ideas  belonging  to  that  sense.  .  The  organs  themselves, 
it  is  clear,  do  not  produce  them ;  for  then  the  eyes  of  a 
man  in  the  dark  would  produce  co'lors,  and  his  nose  smell 
roses  in  the  winter.  Again,  there  is  a  manifest  difference 
between  ideas  from  sensation,  and  ideas  from  memory. 
If  I  turn  my  eyes  at  noon  toward  the  sun,  I  cannot  avoid 
the  ideas  which  the  light  or  sun  then  produces  in  me ; 
whereas  I  can  at  pleasure  recall  or  dismiss  ideas  of  the 


The  Growth  of  Empiricism  343 

sun  that  are  lodged  in  memory  :  and  this  points  to  an 
exterior  cause  for  the  former.  So,  also,  our  senses  cor- 
roborate one  another.  "  He  that  sees  a  fire  may,  if  he 
doubt  whether  it  be  anything  more  than  a  bare  fancy,  feel 
it  too,  and  be  convinced  by  putting  his  hand  in  it ;  which 
certainly  could  never  be  put  into  such  exquisite  pain  by 
a  bare  idea  or  phantom."  So  that  "this  evidence  is  as 
great  as  we  can  desire,  being  as  certain  to  us  as  our  pleas- 
ure or  pain,  i.e.,  happiness  or  misery;  beyond  which  we 
have  no  concernment,  either  of  knowing  or  being." 1 

3.  Limitations  of  our  Knowledge  of  the  External  World. 
—  But  granting  it  is  proved  we  have  a  knowledge  of  the 
existence  of  material  things,  we  still  need  to  inquire  in  re- 
gard to  the  adequacy  and  extent  of  this  knowledge.  Now, 
in  the  first  place,  our  simple  ideas  are  adequate ;  they  may 
not  be  actual  copies  of  material  qualities,  but  they  are 
necessarily  and  truly  connected  with  them  in  the  order  of 
nature.  "  Since  the  mind,  as  has  been  showed,  can  by  no 
means  make  to  itself  these  simple  ideas,  they  must  neces- 
sarily be  the  product  of  things  operating  on  the  mind  in  a 
natural  way,  and  producing  therein  those  perceptions  which 
by  the  wisdom  and  will  of  our  Maker  they  are  ordained 
and  adapted  to.  From  whence  it  follows  that  simple  ideas 
are  not  fictions  of  our  fancies,  but  the  natural  and  regular 
productions  of  things  without  us,  really  operating  upon  us ; 
and  so  carry  with  them  all  the  conformity  which  is  intended, 
or  which  our  state  requires  :  for  they  represent  to  us  things 
under  those  appearances  they  are  fitted  to  produce  in  us. 
Thus  the  idea  of  whiteness  or  bitterness,  as  it  is  in  the 
mind,  exactly  answering  that  power  which  is  in  any  body 
to  produce  it  there,  has  all  the  real  conformity  it  can  or 
ought  to  have,  with  things  without  us."2 

But  when  it  comes  to  a  knowledge  of  complex  substances, 
the  case  is  different.  We  may  combine  ideas,  and  refer 
them  to  a  substance,  when,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  they  are 
not  actually  found  together  in  that  substance ;  or,  we  may 

i  Bk.  IV,  Chap.  XI,  3-8.  a  Bk.  IV,  Chap.  IV,  4. 


344        -^  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

leave  out  qualities  which  ought  really  to  be  there ;  or  again, 
we  may  attribute  to  the  connection,  in  the  substance,  of  its 
simple  qualities,  a  necessity  which  this  does  not  possess. 
If  we  have  actually  found  certain  simple  qualities  going 
together,  we  have  a  real  knowledge  of  their  coexistence  in 
nature  in  this  particular  case.  But  practically  we  have  no 
insight  into  the  reason  for  the  connection,  and  so  our  knowl- 
edge hardly  goes  farther  than  our  empirical  acquaintance 
with  the  particular  instances.  Necessity,  for  the  most  part, 
belongs  only  to  abstract  ideas.  "  Some  few  of  the  primary 
qualities  have  a  necessary  dependence  and  visible  connection 
one  with  another,  as  figure  necessarily  supposes  extension. 
Yet  there  are  so  few  of  them,  that  we  can  by  intuition  or 
demonstration  discover  the  coexistence  of  very  few  of  the 
qualities  that  are  to  be  found  united  in  substances.  Thus, 
though  we  see  the  yellow  color,  and,  upon  trial,  find  the 
weight,  malleableness,  fusibility,  and  fixedness  that  are 
united  in  a  piece  of  gold ;  yet  because  ro  one  of  these  ideas 
has  any  evident  dependence  or  necessary  connection  with 
the  others,  we  cannot  certainly  know  that  where  any  four 
of  these  are,  the  fifth  will  be  there  also,  how  highly  prob- 
able soever  it  may  be." 1 

"  In  fine,  then,  when  our  senses  do  actually  convey  into 
our  understandings  any  idea,  we  cannot  but  be  satisfied 
that  there  doth  something  at  that  time  really  exist  without 
us,  which  doth  affect  our  senses,  and  actually  produce  that 
idea  which  we  then  perceive ;  and  we  cannot  so  far  distrust 
their  testimony,  as  to  doubt  that  such  collections  of  simple 
ideas  as  we  have  observed  by  our  senses  to  be  united 
together,  do  really  exist  together.  But  this  knowledge 
extends  as  far  as  the  present  testimony  of  our  senses,  em- 
ployed about  particular  objects  that  do  then  affect  them, 
and  no  farther.  For  if  I  saw  such  a  collection  of  simple 
ideas  as  is  wont  to  be  called  man,  existing  together  one 
minute  since,  and  am  now  alone ;  I  cannot  be  certain  that 
the  same  man  exists  now,  since  there  is  no  necessary  con- 

1  Bk.  IV,  Chap.  Ill,  14. 


The  Growth  of  Empiricism  345 

nection  of  his  existence  a  minute  since  with  his  existence 
now  :  by  a  thousand  ways  he  may  cease  to  be,  since  I  had 
the  testimony  of  my  senses  for  his  existence." 1 

4.  Probable  Knowledge.  —  So  much,  then,  for  our  certain 
knowledge.    Fortunately,  however,  we  do  not  have  to  de- 
pend upon  demonstration  for  a  great  part  of  the  affairs  of 
life.    "  The  understanding  faculties  being  given  to  man,  not 
barely  for  speculation,  but  also  for  the  conduct  of  his  life, 
man  would  be  at  a  great  loss  if  he  had  nothing  to  direct 
him  but  what  has  the  certainty  of  true  knowledge  ;  for  that 
being  very  short  and  scanty,  as  we  have  seen,  he  would  be 
often  utterly  in  the  dark,  and  in  most  of  the  actions  of  his 
life,  perfectly  at  a  stand,  had  he  nothing  to  guide  him  in  the 
absence  of  clear  and  certain  knowledge.     He  that  will  not 
eat  till  he  has  demonstration  that  it  will  nourish  him,  he 
that  will  not  stir  till  he  infallibly  knows  the  business  he 
goes  about  will  succeed,  will  have  little  else  to  do  but  to 
sit  still  and  perish."  2     Accordingly,  Locke  goes  on  to  con- 
sider the  grounds  of  probability,  which  in  brief  are  these  : 
"  First,  The  conformity  of  anything  with  our  own  knowl- 
edge, observation,  and  experience.      Secondly,  The  testi- 
mony of  others,  vouching  their  observation  and  experience. 
In  this  is  to  be  considered,  (i)  The  number.     (2)  The 
integrity.     (3)  The  skill  of  the  witnesses.     (4)  The  design 
of  the  author,  when  it  is  a  testimony  out  of  a  book  cited. 
(5)  The  consistency  of  the  parts,  and  circumstances  of  the 
relation.    (6)  Contrary  testimonies."3     Among  the  beliefs 
accepted  on  testimony,  those  based  on  revelation  have  a 
peculiarly  high  degree  of  assurance.     Nevertheless,  this  is 
always  less  than  intuitive  and  demonstrative  certainty,  and 
therefore  it  can  never  prevail,  if  it  comes  in  conflict  with 
truths  of  the  latter  kind. 

5.  Ethics.  —  A  word  remains  to  be  said  about  Locke's 
ethical  theory.     He  never  works  this  out  in  detail,  but 
scattered   references   show  what  lines  it  would  have  fol- 

i  Bk.  IV,  Chap.  XI,  9.  a  Bk.  IV,  Chap.  XIV,  i. 

»Bk.  IV,  Chap.  XV,  4. 


346         A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

lowed.  Good  and  evil  are  nothing  but  pleasure  and  pain, 
or  what  occasions  or  produces  pleasure  or  pain  for  us. 
Moral  good  or  evil,  then,  is  only  the  "  conformity  or  dis- 
agreement of  our  voluntary  actions  to  some  law,  whereby 
good  or  evil  is  drawn  on  us  by  the  will  and  power  of  the 
lawmaker ;  which  good  and  evil,  pleasure  or  pain,  attend- 
ing our  observance  or  breach  of  the  law  by  the  decree  of 
the  lawmaker,  is  that  we  call  reward  and  punishment." 
The  true  ground  of  morality  is  thus  the  will  and  law  of  a 
God,  "  who  sees  men  in  the  dark,  has  in  his  hands  rewards 
and  punishments,  and  power  enough  to  call  to  account  the 
proudest  offender."  1  Locke  thinks  that  ethics  can  be  made 
a  demonstrative  science. 

LITERATURE 

Locke,  Chief  Works :  Essay  concerning  Human  Understanding 
(1690)  ;  Thoughts  on  Education  (1692)  ;  Reasonableness  of  Christian- 
ity^^). 

Russell,  Selections. 

Fowler,  Locke. 

Eraser,  Locke. 

Curtis,  Outline  of  Locke's  Ethical  Philosophy. 

Green,  Introduction  to  Hume. 

Bourne,  Life  of  John  Locke. 

Dewey,  Leibniz1  New  Essays. 

McCosh,  Realistic  Philosophy. 

Moore,  Existence^  Meaning  and  Reality  in  Lockers  Essay. 

§  32.     Berkeley 

The  philosophy  of  Locke  was,  for  the  most  part,  a  clear- 
ing up  and  systematization  of  our  common-sense  beliefs. 
It  proposed  to  itself  no  metaphysical  subtilties,  nor  did  it 
think  it  possible  to  attain  to  any  great  amount  of  absolute 
and  ultimate  knowledge.  The  present  facts  of  sense,  how- 
ever, it  did  not  doubt ;  and  these,  eked  out  by  probability, 
seemed  to  it  quite  sufficient  to  answer  all  the  practical 
needs  of  life.  But  Locke  had  set  forces  at  work  which  did 
not  stop  with  him.  There  were  contradictions  and  diffi- 

1  Bk.  II,  Chap.  XXVIII,  5  ;  Bk.  I,  Chap.  Ill,  6. 


The  Growth  of  Empiricism  347 

culties  present  in  his  thought  which  he  did  not  perceive, 
but  which  could  not  long  be  overlooked.  One  such  dif- 
ficulty has  been  noticed  in  his  theory  of  knowledge. 
Technically,  he  had  limited  the  possibility  of  knowledge 
to  a  perception  of  the  connections  between  ideas ;  but  he 
immediately  had  to  add  to  this  the  agreement  of  ideas  with 
a  reality  which  is  no  idea  of  ours  at  all.  It  was  from  this 
point  that  a  movement  started  which  was,  in  the  end,  to 
render  all  knowledge  whatever  uncertain. 

George  Berkeley,  on  whom  the  mantle  of  Locke  fell, 
was  an  Irishman,  born  in  1685.  He  entered  Dublin  in 
1700.  Here  his  intellectual  subtilty,  his  enthusiastic  and 
imaginative  temperament,  and  his  peculiarly  lovable  per- 
sonality, won  for  him  a  high  reputation  among  his  inti- 
mates. His  zeal  for  knowledge  is  illustrated  in  the  story 
related  of  him  that,  after  attending  an  execution  with  some 
companions,  he  induced  his  friends  to  suspend  him  from 
the  ceiling,  that  he  might  experience  the  sensation  of 
strangling.  He  was  cut  down  only  after  he  had  become 
unconscious. 

It  was  in  these  early  college  days  that  the  vision  came 
to  him  of  the  new  principle  by  which  he  hoped  to  revolu- 
tionize philosophy  ;  and  his  chief  work  —  A  Treatise  on 
the  Principles  of  Human  Knowledge  —  was  published  in  his 
twenty-fifth  year.  The  novelty  of  his  conception  —  the 
denial  of  the  independent  existence  of  matter  —  prevented 
an  immediate  recognition ;  but  his  acute  reasoning,  and  the 
beauty  of  his  literary  style,  gradually  overcame  the  preju- 
dice which  the  paradoxical  nature  of  his  position  at  first 
aroused.  In  1713  Berkeley  visited  London.  Here  he 
became  acquainted  with  the  brilliant  literary  circle  of 
Queen  Anne's  reign  —  Steele,  Addison,  Swift,  Pope,  and 
others,  —  and  by  the  charm  of  his  personality  made  a 
deep  impression.  After  some  time  spent  in  travel,  he 
returned  to  England,  to  carry  out  a  great  philanthropic 
purpose,  which,  for  the  next  few  years,  filled  his  thoughts. 
This  was  the  idea  of  converting  America,  and  laying  there 


348        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

the  foundation  of  a  higher  and  purer  civilization  than  he 
found  at  home,  through  the  establishment  of  a  university 
in  the  Bermudas.  The  plan  was  at  once  too  noble,  and 
too  visionary,  to  appeal  much  to  English  politicians;  but 
his  high-minded  enthusiasm  and  eloquence  won  the  day, 
and  he  secured  a  grant  from  Parliament  of  .£20,000.  In 
1728  he  sailed  for  America,  landing  in  Rhode  Island;  and 
here  he  spent  the  next  three  years  in  quiet  and  study,  wait- 
ing for  the  plans  for  the  university  to  be  carried  out.  But 
with  Berkeley  off  the  ground,  the  natural  disinclination  to 
the  scheme  asserted  itself  again ;  and  finally,  convinced 
that  the  grant  was  never  to  be  paid,  Berkeley  returned  to 
England.  Here  he  received  an  appointment  as  Bishop 
of  Cloyne,  in  Ireland.  His  last  appearance  was  in  con- 
nection with  a  somewhat  fantastic  controversy  about  the 
merits  of  tar  water,  in  which  Berkeley,  partly  on  experi- 
mental, partly  on  philosophic  grounds,  was  convinced  that 
he  had  found  a  universal  panacea  for  physical  ills,  and 
which  his  deep  interest  in  the  welfare  of  humanity  urged 
him  to  promote  with  his  usual  fire  and  enthusiasm.  His 
last  work  —  Siris  —  is  a  compound  of  the  praises  of  tar 
water,  with  some  of  the  most  profound  of  his  philosophical 
reflections.  He  died  in  1753. 

i .  Unthinking  Matter  does  not  Exist.  —  There  are  two 
sides  to  Berkeley's  doctrine,  a  negative  and  a  positive ; 
and  it  was  the  negative  side  which  made  the  deepest 
impression  on  his  age,  and  on  the  future  development 
of  philosophy.  His  main  thesis  may  be  stated  in  his 
own  words :  "  It  is  evident  to  any  one  who  takes  a 
survey  of  the  objects  of  human  knowledge,  that  they 
are  either  ideas  actually  imprinted  on  the  senses,  or  else 
such  as  are  perceived  by  attending  to  the  passions  and 
operations  of  the  mind ;  or,  lastly,  ideas  formed  by  help 
of  memory  and  imagination.  .  .  .  But  besides  all  that 
endless  variety  of  ideas  or  objects  of  knowledge,  there  is 
likewise  something  which  knows  or  perceives  them,  and 
exercises  divers  operations,  as  willing,  imagining,  remem- 


The  Growth  of  Empiricism  349 

bering,  about  them.  This  perceiving,  active  being  is  what 
I  call  MIND,  SPIRIT,  SOUL,  or  MYSELF.  .  .  .  That  neither 
our  thoughts,  nor  passions,  nor  ideas  formed  by  the  imag- 
ination, exist  without  the  mind,  is  what  everybody  will 
allow.  And  it  seems  no  less  evident  that  the  various  sen- 
sations, or  ideas  imprinted  on  the  sense,  however  blended 
or  combined  together  (that  is,  whatever  objects  they  com- 
pose) cannot  exist  otherwise  than  in  a  mind  perceiving 
them.  I  think  an  intuitive  knowledge  may  be  obtained  of 
this  by  any  one  that  shall  attend  to  what  is  meant  by 
the  term  '  exist '  when  applied  to  sensible  things.  The  table 
I  write  on  I  say  exists,  that  is,  I  see  and  feel  it ;  and  if  I 
were  out  of  my  study,  I  should  say  it  existed,  meaning 
thereby  that  if  I  was  in  my  study,  I  might  perceive  it,  or 
that  some  other  spirit  actually  does  perceive  it.  There 
was  an  odor,  that  is,  it  was  smelt ;  there  was  a  sound,  that 
is,  it  was  heard ;  a  color  or  figure,  and  it  was  perceived  by 
sight  or  touch.  That  is  all  I  can  understand  by  these  and 
the  like  expressions.  For  as  to  what  is  said  of  the  abso- 
lute existence  of  unthinking  things,  without  any  relation 
to  their  being  perceived,  that  is  to  me  perfectly  unintelligi- 
ble. Their  esse  is  percipi,  nor  is  it  possible  they  should 
have  any  existence  out  of  the  minds  of  thinking  things 
which  perceive  them.  It  is,  indeed,  an  opinion  strangely 
prevailing  amongst  men,  that  houses,  mountains,  rivers, 
and  in  a  word  all  sensible  objects,  have  an  existence,  natu- 
ral or  real,  distinct  from  their  being  perceived  by  the 
understanding.  But  with  how  great  an  assurance  and 
acquiescence  soever  this  principle  may  be  entertained  in 
the  world,  yet  whoever  shall  find  in  his  heart  to  call  it  in 
question,  may,  if  I  mistake  not,  perceive  it  to  involve  a 
manifest  contradiction.  For  what  are  the  fore-mentioned 
objects,  but  the  things  we  perceive  by  sense  ?  And  what 
do  we  perceive  besides  our  own  ideas  or  sensations  ?  And 
is  it  not  plainly  repugnant  that  any  one  of  these,  or  any 
combination  of  them,  should  exist  unperceived  ? " 

"  Some  truths  there  are  so  near  and  obvious  to  the  mind 


350        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

that  a  man  need  only  open  his  eyes  to  see  them.  Such  I 
take  this  important  one  to  be,  viz.,  that  all  the  choir  of 
heaven  and  furniture  of  the  earth,  in  a  word  all  those 
bodies  which  compose  the  mighty  fjame  of  the  world,  have 
not  any  subsistence  without  a  mind  —  that  their  being  is  to 
be  perceived  or  known  ;  that,  consequently,  so  long  as  they 
are  not  actually  perceived  by  me,  or  do  not  exist  in  my 
mind  or  that  of  any  other  created  spirit,  they  must  either 
have  no  existence  at  all,  or  else  subsist  in  the  mind  of  some 
Eternal  Spirit  —  it  being  perfectly  unintelligible,  and  in- 
volving all  the  absurdity  of  abstraction,  to  attribute  to  any 
single  part  of  them  an  existence  independent  of  a  spirit."  J 
This,  accordingly,  is  what  Berkeley  starts  in  to  prove  — 
the  immaterialism  of  the  external  world,  the  non-existence 
of  an  unspiritual,  unthinking  matter.  Far  from  admitting, 
however,  that  this  is  a  paradox,  Berkeley  insists  that  he  is 
only  going  back  to,  and  justifying,  the  beliefs  of  common 
sense,  in  opposition  to  the  confusion  in  which  philosophers 
have  involved  the  question.  "Upon  the  whole,"  he  says, 
"I  am  inclined  to  think  that  the  far  greater  part,  if  not  all, 
of  those  difficulties  which  have  hitherto  amused  philoso- 
phers, and  blocked  up  the  way  to  knowledge,  are  entirely 
owing  to  themselves  —  that  we  have  first  raised  a  dust,  and 
then  complain  we  cannot  see."2  The  root  of  the  evil  lies 
in  the  supposition,  universally  made,  but  entirely  false, 
that  we  can  have  such  things  as  abstract  ideas.  In  reality, 
every  possible  idea  must  be  a  particular  concrete  fact  of 
consciousness,  or  image,  with  definite  characteristics,  which 
we  can  discover  and  describe.  If  we  cannot  discover  such 
an  image,  we  are  wrong  in  supposing  that  any  idea  is  there. 
We  deceive  ourselves  by  taking  words  for  ideas.  Once 
get  free  from  the  bondage  of  words,  and  represent  to  our- 
selves concretely  the  things  we  are  talking  about,  and  half 
the  difficulties  of  philosophy  will  be  solved.  "In  vain  do  we 
extend  our  view  into  the  heavens,  and  pry  into  the  entrails 
of  the  earth,  in  vain  do  we  consult  the  writings  of  learned 

1  Treatise,  §§  i,  2,  3,  4,  6.  2  Ibid.,  Introd.,  §  3. 


The  Growth  of  Empiricism  351 

men,  and  trace  the  dark  footsteps  of  antiquity  —  we  need 
only  draw  the  curtain  of  words,  to  behold  the  fairest  tree  of 
knowledge,  whose  fruit  is  excellent,  and  within  the  reach 
of  our  hand."  1 

With  this  preliminary  warning,  we  may  turn  to  our  con- 
ception of  matter  —  matter,  that  is,  as  independent  of  mind 
or  consciousness.  The  simple  test  is,  Can  we  represent  to 
ourselves  what  we  mean  by  matter  in  this  sense  ?  or  is  it 
just  a  word  which  we  use,  without  any  understanding  be- 
hind it  ?  It  is  on  this  that  Berkeley  rests  his  whole  case. 
If  we  can  tell  what  we  mean  by  the  existence  of  objects, 
in  abstraction  from  the  fact  of  their  being  perceived,  very 
well.  But  if  we  cannot,  then  we  are  merely  fooled  by 
words,  and  must,  if  we  are  consistent,  go  back  to  the  posi- 
tion of  common  sense,  and  hold  that  matter  is  nothing  but 
the  very  things  we  see,  feel,  and  hear ;  that  is,  the  collections 
of  ideas  which  make  up  the  experience  of  perception. 

"  But,  say  you,  though  the  ideas  themselves  do  not  exist 
without  the  mind,  yet  there  may  be  things  like  them, 
whereof  they  are  copies  or  resemblances,  which  things 
exist  without  the  mind  in  an  unthinking  substance.  I 
answer,  an  idea  can  be  like  nothing  but  an  idea ;  a  color 
or  figure  can  be  like  nothing  but  another  color  or  figure. 
If  we  look  but  never  so  little  into  our  own  thoughts,  we 
shall  find  it  impossible  for  us  to  conceive  a  likeness  except 
only  between  our  ideas.  Again,  I  ask  whether  those  sup- 
posed originals  or  external  things,  of  which  our  ideas  are 
the  pictures  or  representations,  be  themselves  perceivable 
or  no  ?  If  they  are,  then  they  are  ideas,  and  we  have 
gained  our  point ;  but  if  you  say  they  are  not,  I  appeal  to 
any  one  whether  it  be  sense  to  assert  a  color  is  like  some- 
thing which  is  invisible ;  hard  or  soft,  like  something  which 
is  intangible;  and  so  of  the  rest."2 

Every  quality,  then,  which  we  can  attribute  to  an  object, 
may  be  reduced  to  a  sensible  quality,  or  a  sensation ;  and 
how  can  anything  be  like  a  sensation,  and  still  be  absolutely 

1  Treatise,  Introd.,  §  24.  2  Treatise,  §  8. 


352        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

different  from  what  a  sensation  is,  namely,  conscious  and 
immaterial  ?  If  any  one  objects  to  this  conclusion,  let  him 
consider  that,  in  the  case  of  the  majority  of  the  qualities 
of  matter,  it  is  a  conclusion  already  generally  admitted. 
"  They  who  assert  that  figure,  motion,  and  the  rest  of  the 
primary  or  original  qualities,  do  exist  without  the  mind  in 
unthinking  substances,  do  at  the  same  time  acknowledge 
that  colors,  sounds,  heat,  cold,  and  such  like  secondary 
qualities,  do  not."  But  now,  in  the  first  place,  the  fact 
that  primary  and  secondary  qualities  are  inseparably  joined, 
shows  that,  if  the  latter  exist  only  in  the  mind,  the  same 
thing  must  be  true  of  the  former  also.  "  For  my  own  part, 
I  see  evidently  that  it  is  not  in  my  power  to  frame  an  idea 
of  a  body  extended  and  moving,  but  I  must  withal  give  it 
some  color  or  other  sensible  quality  which  is  acknowledged 
to  exist  only  in  the  mind.  In  short,  extension,  figure,  and 
motion,  abstracted  from  all  other  qualities,  are  inconceiv- 
able. Where  therefore  the  other  sensible  qualities  are, 
there  must  these  be  also,  to  wit,  in  the  mind,  and  nowhere 
else."1 

But  furthermore,  the  very  same  arguments  that  prove 
secondary  qualities  subjective,  apply  equally  to  the  pri- 
mary. Thus,  for  instance,  it  is  said  that  heat  and  cold  are 
affections  only  of  the  mind,  and  not  at  all  patterns  of  real 
beings,  existing  in  the  corporeal  substances  which  excite 
them  ;  "  for  the  same  body  which  appears  cold  to  one  hand 
seems  warm  to  another.  Now,  why  may  we  not  as  well 
argue  that  figure  and  extension  are  not  patterns  or  resem- 
blances of  qualities  existing  in  matter,  because  to  the  same 
eye  at  different  stations,  or  eyes  of  a  different  texture  at 
the  same  station,  they  appear  various,  and  cannot  therefore 
be  the  images  of  anything  settled  and  determinate  without 
the  mind  ?  Again,  it  is  proved  that  sweetness  is  not  really 
in  the  sapid  thing,  because  the  thing  remaining  unaltered, 
the  sweetness  is  changed  into  bitter,  as  in  case  of  a  fever, 
or  otherwise  vitiated  palate.  Is  it  not  as  reasonable  to  say 


10. 


The  Growth  of  Empiricism  353 

that  motion  is  not  without  the  mind,  since  if  the  succession 
of  ideas  in  the  mind  become  swifter,  the  motion,  it  is  ac- 
knowledged, shall  appear  slower,  without  any  alteration  in 
any  external  object  ?  " 1 

But,  it  may  be  said,  the  essence  of  matter  is  not  the 
qualities,  but  a  substratum,  or  substance,  which  lies  behind 
these,  and  supports  them.  The  qualities  may  be  only  sub- 
jective ideas,  but  you  cannot  get  rid  of  the  substantial 
existence  back  of  them.  Now,  in  the  first  place,  if  the 
qualities  are  ideas,  they  cannot  subsist  in  an  unperceiving 
substance.  But  what  of  this  concept  of  substance  itself  ? 
Locke  had  already  criticised  the  notion,  and  had  come  to 
the  conclusion  that  it  is  a  purely  negative  and  unreal  idea. 
It  is  a  "  something  we  know  not  what,"  quite  on  a  par 
with  the  unknown  support  of  the  mythical  tortoise,  which 
for  the  Indian  thinker  holds  up  the  world.  Berkeley  goes 
on  to  subject  the  idea  to  a  still  more  vigorous  criti- 
cism. "  Let  us  examine  a  little  the  description  that  is 
given  us  of  matter.  It  neither  acts,  nor  perceives,  nor  is 
perceived  ;  for  this  is  all  that  is  meant  by  saying  it  is  an 
inert,  senseless,  unknown  substance ;  which  is  a  definition 
entirely  made  up  of  negatives,  excepting  only  the  relative 
notion  of  its  standing  under  or  supporting.  But  then  it 
must  be  observed  that  it  supports  nothing  at  all,  and  how 
nearly  this  comes  to  a  description  of  a  nonentity,  I  desire 
may  be  considered.  But,  say  you,  it  is  the  unknown  occa- 
sion, at  the  presence  of  which  ideas  are  excited  in  us  by 
the  will  of  God.  Now,  I  would  fain  know  how  anything 
can  be  present  to  us,  which  is  neither  perceivable  by 
sense  nor  reflection,  nor  capable  of  producing  any  idea  in 
our  minds,  nor  is  at  all  extended,  nor  hath  any  form,  nor 
exists  in  any  place.  The  words  '  to  be  present,'  when  thus 
applied,  must  needs  be  taken  in  some  abstract  and  strange 
meaning,  and  which  I  am  not  able  to  comprehend."  •  "  You 
may,  if  so  it  shall  seem  good,  use  the  word  '  matter  '  in  the 
same  sense  as  other  men  use  '  nothing,'  and  so  make  those 


354        A  Students  History  of  Philosophy 

terms  convertible  in  your  style.  For,  after  all,  that  is 
what  appears  to  me  to  be  the  result  of  that  definition  — 
the  parts  whereof,  when  I  consider  with  attention,  either 
collectively  or  separate  from  each  other,  I  do  not  find 
that  there  is  any  effect  or  impression  made  on  my  mind 
different  from  what  is  excited  by  the  term  '  nothing.' '  "  It 
is  a  very  extraordinary  instance  of  the  force  of  prejudice, 
and  much  to  be  lamented,  that  the  mind  of  man  retains  so 
great  a  fondness,  against  all  the  evidence  of  reason,  for  a 
stupid,  thoughtless  Somewhat,  by  the  interposition  of  which 
it  would,  as  it  were,  screen  itself  from  the  Providence  of  God, 
and  remove  it  farther  off  from  the  affairs  of  the  world." 1 
A  material  substance,  then,  is  unthinkable.  Moreover, 
it  would  be  of  no  possible  use  if  we  had  it.  "  Though  we 
give  the  materialists  their  external  bodies,  they,  by  their 
own  confession,  are  never  the  nearer  knowing  how  our 
ideas  are  produced  ;  since  they  own  themselves  unable  to 
comprehend  in  what  manner  body  can  act  upon  spirit,  or 
how  it  is  possible  it  should  imprint  any  idea  in  the  mind. 
Hence  it  is  evident  the  production  of  ideas  or  sensations 
in  our  minds  can  be  no  reason  why  we  should  suppose 
matter  or  corporeal  substances,  since  that  is  acknowledged 
to  remain  equally  inexplicable  with  or  without  this  suppo- 
sition. ...  In  short,  if  there  were  external  bodies,  it  is 
impossible  we  should  ever  come  to  know  it ;  and  if  there 
were  not,  we  might  have  the  very  same  reasons  to  think 
there  were  that  we  have  now.  Suppose —  what  no  one  can 
deny  possible  —  an  intelligence,  without  the  help  of  exter- 
nal bodies,  to  be  affected  with  the  same  train  of  sensa- 
tions or  ideas  that  you  are,  imprinted  in  the  same  order, 
and  with  like  vividness  in  his  mind.  I  ask  whether  that 
intelligence  hath  not  all  the  reason  to  believe  the  existence 
of  corporeal  substances,  represented  by  his  ideas,  and  ex- 
citing them  in  his  mind,  that  y.ou  can  possibly  have  for  be- 
lieving the  same  thing  ?  Of  this  there  can  be  no  question  ; 
which  one  consideration  were  enough  to  make  any  reason- 


The  Growth  of  Empiricism  355 

able  person  suspect  the  strength  of  whatever  arguments 
he  may  think  himself  to  have,  for  the  existence  of  bodies 
without  the  mind."  1 

To  reiterate  the  main  point,  an  unthinking  matter  does 
not  exist,  simply  because  it  is  inconceivable.  "  I  am  con- 
tent to  put  the  whole  upon  this  issue :  If  you  can  but 
conceive  it  possible  for  one  extended  movable  substance, 
or,  in  general,  for  any  one  idea,  or  anything  like  an  idea, 
to  exist  otherwise  than  in  a  mind  perceiving  it,  I  shall 
readily  give  up  the  cause.  And,  as  for  all  that  compages 
of  external  bodies  you  contend  for,  I  shall  grant  you  its 
existence,  though  you  cannot  either  give  me  any  reason 
why  you  believe  it  exists,  or  assign  any  use  to  it  when  it 
is  supposed  to  exist.  I  say,  the  bare  possibility  of  your 
opinion's  being  true,  shall  pass  for  an  argument  that  it  is 
so.  But,  say  you,  surely  there  is  nothing  easier  than  for 
me  to  imagine  trees,  for  instance,  in  a  park,  or  books  ex- 
isting in  a  closet,  and  nobody  by  to  perceive  them.  I  an- 
swer, you  may  so,  there  is  no  difficulty  in  it ;  but  what  is  all 
this,  I  beseech  you,  more  than  framing  in  your  mind  cer- 
tain ideas  which  you  call  books  and  trees,  and  at  the  same 
time  omitting  to  frame  the  idea  of  any  one  that  may  per- 
ceive them  ?  But  do  not  you  yourself  perceive  or  think  of 
them  all  the  while  ?  This  therefore  is  nothing  to  the  pur- 
pose ;  it  only  shows  you  have  the  power  of  imagining  or 
forming  ideas  in  your  mind ;  but  it  does  not  show  that  you 
can  conceive  it  possible  the  objects  of  your  thought  may 
exist  without  the  mind.  To  make  out  this,  it  is  necessary 
that  jy0#  conceive  them  existing  unconceived,  or  unthought 
of,  which  is  a  manifest  repugnancy.  When  we  do  our  ut- 
most to  conceive  the  existence  of  external  bodies,  we  are 
all  the  while  only  contemplating  our  own  ideas.  But  the 
mind,  taking  no  notice  of  itself,  is  deluded  to  think  it  can 
and  does  conceive  bodies  existing  unthought  of  or  without 
the  mind,  though  at  the  same  time  they  are  apprehended 
by  or  exist  in  itself."  2 

1  §§  19.  20.  a  §§  22,  23. 


356         A  Students  History  of  Philosophy 

2.  God  as  the  Cause  of  our  Ideas.  —  So  much  for  the 
purely  negative  argument.  But  if  we  were  to  stop 
here,  no  one,  probably,  would  be  convinced.  Is  there, 
then,  we  ask,  no  reality  outside  our  own  fleeting  ideas  ? 
Can  we  say  nothing  beyond  the  fact  that  these  ideas 
come  and  go  ?  Certainly  we  can ;  and  this  brings  us 
to  the  more  constructive  side  of  Berkeley's  theory.  In 
addition  to  the  mere  existence  of  ideas,  there  are  two 
very  important  characteristics  of  our  sense  experience  — 
its  necessity,  and  orderly  coherence.  "Whatever  power 
I  may  have  over  my  own  thoughts,  I  find  the  ideas  actu- 
ally perceived  by  sense  have  not  a  like  dependence  on  my 
will.  When  in  broad  daylight  I  open  my  eyes,  it  is  not  in 
my  power  to  choose  whether  I  shall  see  or  no,  or  to  deter- 
mine what  particular  objects  shall  present  themselves  to 
my  view."  1  So,  also,  sensations  have  a  steadiness,  order, 
and  coherence ;  they  are  not  excited  at  random,  as  those 
ideas  which  are  the  effect  of  human  wills  often  are,  but  in 
a  regular  train  or  series.  Let  us,  then,  keep  in  mind  these 
two  conclusions :  First,  my  ideas  evidently  require  some 
cause  beyond  my  own  will ;  and,  second,  this  cause  cannot 
be  an  unthinking  matter  —  a  word  to  which  no  positive 
notion  corresponds.  Nor,  clearly,  can  the  ideas  be  the 
cause  one  of  another.  "  All  our  ideas,  sensations,  notions, 
or  the  things  which  we  perceive,  are  visibly  inactive,  — 
there  is  nothing  of  power  or  agency  included  in  them."  2 

Is  there,  then,  any  other  sort  of  reality  known  to  us, 
apart  from  passive  ideas,  to  which  we  may  have  recourse  ? 
Yes ;  in  addition  to  ideas,  we  know  ourselves,  or  spirits. 
As  opposed  to  ideas,  a  spirit  is  a  substance.  "  Besides  all 
that  endless  variety  of  ideas  or  objects  of  knowledge,  there 
is  likewise  something  which  knows  or  perceives  them,  and 
exercises  divers  operations,  as  willing,  imagining,  remem- 
bering about  them  ;  "3  and  that  this  substance  which  sup- 
ports or  perceives  ideas  should  itself  be  an  idea,  or  like  an 
idea,  is  evidently  absurd.  Instead  of  being  passive,  as 
1  §  29.  2  §  25.  8  §  2. 


T/ie  Grow  Ik  of  Empiricism  357 

ideas  are,  it  is  active.  "  All  the  unthinking  objects  of  the 
mind  agree  in  that  they  are  entirely  passive,  and  their  exist- 
ence consists  only  in  being  perceived ;  whereas  a  soul  or 
spirit  is  an  active  being,  whose  existence  consists,  not  in 
being  perceived,  but  in  perceiving  ideas,  and  thinking."  J 
We  have  no  knowledge  of  any  reality  that  is  not  one  of 
these  two  sorts  —  spirits,  or  ideas.  "  The  former  are  ac- 
tive, indivisible  substances ;  the  latter  are  inert,  fleeting, 
dependent  beings,  which  subsist  not  by  themselves,  but 
are  supported  by,  or  exist  in,  minds  or  spiritual  sub- 
stances." 2  We  may  say  that  we  have  a  notion  of  spirit, 
although  we  have  no  idea  or  image  of  it. 

And  now  Berkeley's  theory  is  ready  for  him.  "We 
perceive  a  continual  succession  of  ideas;  some  are  anew 
excited,  others  are  changed  or  totally  disappear.  There 
is,  therefore,  some  cause  of  these  ideas,  whereon  they 
depend,  and  which  produces  and  changes  them.  That  this 
cause  cannot  be  any  quality  or  idea  or  combination  of  ideas, 
is  clear  already.  It  must  therefore  be  a  substance ;  but  it 
has  been  shown  that  there  is  no  corporeal  or  material  sub- 
stance ;  it  remains,  therefore,  that  the  cause  of  ideas  is  an 
incorporeal,  active  substance,  or  spirit." 3  And  since  our 
own  will  is  not  equal  to  the  task,  there  must  be  some  other 
Will  that  produces  ideas  in  us  —  namely,  God.  Our  ideas, 
that  is,  must  have  an  objective  cause.  But  instead  of  look- 
ing for  this  in  an  unthinkable  matter,  why  not  have  re- 
course to  a  reality  of  the  same  type  as  that  we  know 
already  in  the  knowledge  of  ourselves? 

In  this  hypothesis,  we  have  everything  that  is  needed 
to  account  for"  the  objectivity,  order,  significance,  and  ne- 
cessity of  our  ideas.  The  objection  that,  if  things  are  only 
ideas,  we  ought  to  be  able  to  create  a  world  to  suit  our- 
selves, is  wholly  without  point ;  there  stands  a  power  over 
against  us,  which,  in  sensation,  determines  the  order  our 
ideas  shall  follow.  But  such  a  controlling  spirit  will  sat- 
isfy all  the  conditions.  What  we  call  the  connection  of 
1  §  139-  2  §  89-  8  §  26. 


358        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

qualities  in  things,  or  the  laws  of  nature,  stands  only  for 
this :  that  by  the  divine  power,  one  sensation  is  made  to 
serve  to  us  as  a  sign  that  we  may,  if  we  wish,  get  other 
concurrent  sensations ;  or  that  other  sensations  are  about 
to  follow.  "  The  connection  of  ideas  does  not  imply  the 
relation  of  cause  and  effect,  but  only  of  a  mark  or  sign,  with 
the  tiling  signified.  The  fire  which  I  see  is  not  the  cause 
of  the  pain  I  suffer  upon  my  approaching  it,  but  the  mark 
that  forewarns  me  of  it.  In  like  manner  the  noise  that  I 
hear  is  not  the  effect  of  this  or  that  motion  or  collision  of 
the  ambient  bodies,  but  the  sign  thereof."  This  gives  us 
a  sort  of  foresight  which  enables  us  to  regulate  our  actions 
for  the  benefit  of  life ;  and  we  cannot  reasonably  demand 
anything  more.  "  That  food  nourishes,  sleep  refreshes, 
and  fire  warms  us ;  that  to  sow  in  the  seedtime  is  the  way 
to  reap  in  the  harvest ;  and,  in  general,  that  to  obtain  such 
or  such  ends,  such  or  such  means  are  conducive  —  all  this 
we  know,  not  by  discovering  any  necessary  connection 
between  our  ideas,  but  only  by  the  observation  of  the  set- 
tled laws  of  nature,  without  which  we  should  be  all  in  un- 
certainty and  confusion,  and  a  grown  man  no  more  know 
how  to  manage  himself  in  the  affairs  of  life  than  an  infant 
just  born.  And  yet  this  consistent  uniform  working,  which 
so  evidently  displays  the  goodness  and  wisdom  of  that 
Governing  Spirit  whose  Will  constitutes  the  laws  of  nature, 
is  so  far  from  leading  our  thoughts  to  Him,  that  it  rather 
sends  them  wandering  after  second  causes."  * 

3.  Answers  to  Objections.  —  Having  stated  his  theory, 
Berkeley  goes  on  to  anticipate  the  objections  that  will  be 
brought  against  it.  First,  it  will  be  objected  "  that  by 
the  foregoing  principles  all  that  is  real  and  substantial  in 
nature  is  banished  out  of  the  world,  and  instead  thereof  a 
chimerical  scheme  of  ideas  takes  place.  All  things  that 
exist,  exist  only  in  the  mind,  that  is,  they  are  purely 
notional.  What,  therefore,  becomes  of  the  sun,  moon,  and 
stars  ?  What  must  we  think  of  houses,  rivers,  trees, 

1  §§  65,  31.  3*> 


The  Growth  of  Empiricism  359 

stones  ?  Are  all  these  but  so  many  chimeras  and  illusions 
of  fancy  ?  To  all  which  I  answer,  that  by  the  principles 
premised  we  are  not  deprived  of  any  one  thing  in  nature. 
Whatever  we  see,  feel,  hear,  or  any  wise  conceive  or  under- 
stand, remains  as  secure  as  ever.  There  is  a  re  rum  natura, 
and  the  distinction  between  realities  and  chimeras  retains 
its  full  force.  .  .  .  The  only  thing  whose  existence  we 
deny  is  that  which  philosophers  call  matter,  or  corporeal  sub- 
stance. And  in  doing  this  there  is  no  damage  done  to  the 
rest  of  mankind,  who,  I  dare  say,  will  never  miss  it."  *  The 
phrase  "  greater  reality  "  has  no  meaning  except  as  it  indi- 
cates the  superiority  of  certain  ideas  over  others  in  vividness, 
coherency,  and  distinctness ;  and  in  this  sense  the  sun  that 
I  see  by  day  is  the  real  sun,  and  that  which  I  imagine  by 
night  is  the  idea  of  the  former.  This  also  is  an  answer  to 
the  objection  that  there  is  a  great  difference  between  real 
fire,  for  instance,  and  the  idea  of  fire,  between  dreaming  or 
imagining  oneself  burnt,  and  actually  being  so.  And  it  may 
be  added,  that  "  if  real  fire  be  very  different  from  the  idea  of 
fire,  so  also  is  the  real  pain  which  it  occasions  very  differ- 
ent from  the  idea  of  the  same  pain ;  and  yet  nobody  will 
pretend  that  real  pain  really  is,  or  can  possibly  be,  in  an 
unperceiving  thing,  or  without  the  mind,  any  more  than  its 
idea."2 

Again,  "it  will  be  objected  that  we  see  things  actually 
without  or  at  a  distance  from  us,  and  which  consequently 
do  not  exist  in  the  mind ;  it  being  absurd  that  those  things 
which  are  seen  at  the  distance  of  several  miles,  should  be 
as  near  to  us  as  our  own  thoughts."  8  In  answer  to  this, 
Berkeley  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that  in  dreams,  also, 
we  seem  to  see  things  at  a  distance,  which  yet  have  no 
reality  outside  the  mind ;  but  he  has  a  more  adequate 
answer  still.  For  in  his  famous  New  Theory  of  Vision, 
he  had  already  attempted  to  prove  that  we  do  not  see  dis- 
tance at  all ;  all  we  get  through  the  senses  is  sensations 
of  color  and  touch.  When  one  says  that  a  thing  is  at  a 

1  §§  34,  35-  2  §  41-  8  §  4* 


360        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

distance,  what  he  unconsciously  means  is,  that,  in  order  to 
touch  the  thing,  he  foresees  he  would  have  to  pass  through 
certain  locomotive  or  muscular  sensations,  more  or  less 
numerous  according  to  the  distance  from  him  at  which  the 
thing  is  placed.  Vision  is  simply  a  "  language,"  in  which, 
by  an  arbitrary  connection,  one  sensation  (of  color)  stands 
as  sign  for  another  (of  movement).  Or,  do  we  object  that, 
on  this  view,  things  are  annihilated  and  created  anew 
every  time  we  shut  and  open  our  eyes  ?  Once  more 
Berkeley  asks :  Why  call  this  absurd,  if  we  can  get  abso- 
lutely no  notion  of  what  a  thing  can  be  when  it  is  not  per- 
ceived ?  And  if  it  is  "  thought  strangely  absurd  that  upon 
closing  my  eyelids  all  the  visible  objects  around  me  should 
be  reduced  to  nothing,  yet  is  not  this  what  philosophers 
commonly  acknowledge,  when  they  agree  on  all  hands 
that  light  and  colors,  which  alone  are  the  proper  and 
immediate  objects  of  sight,  are  mere  sensations,  that  exist 
no  longer  than  they  are  perceived  ? "  1  And  so  Berkeley 
goes  on  with  various  other  objections;  and,  although  he 
does  not  meet  them  all  with  complete  success,  there  is 
very  little  that  has  since  been  urged  against  him  which  he 
does  not  anticipate  more  or  less  clearly. 

Let  us  sum  up  once  more.  "  Ideas  imprinted  on  the 
senses  are  real  things,  or  do  really  exist ;  this  we  do  not 
deny ;  but  we  deny  that  they  can  subsist  without  the 
minds  which  perceive  them,  or  that  they  are  resem- 
blances of  any  archetypes  existing  without  the  mind ; 
since  the  very  being  of  a  sensation  or  idea  consists  in 
being  perceived,  and  an  idea  can  be  like  nothing  but  an 
idea.  Again,  the  things  perceived  by  sense  may  be 
termed  external,  with  regard  to  their  origin  —  in  that 
they  are  not  generated  from  within  by  the  mind  itself, 
but  imprinted  by  a  Spirit  distinct  from  that  which  per- 
ceives them.  ...  It  were  a  mistake  to  think  that  what 
is  here  said  derogates  in  the  least  from  the  reality  of 
things.  It  is  acknowledged,  on  the  received  principles, 


The  Growth  of  Empiricism  361 

that  extension,  motion,  and  in  a  word  all  sensible  quali- 
ties, have  need  of  a  support,  as  not  being  able  to  subsist 
by  themselves.  But  the  objects  perceived  by  sense  are 
allowed  to  be  nothing  but  combinations  of  those  qualities, 
and  consequently  cannot  subsist  by  themselves.  Thus  far 
it  is  agreed  on  all  hands.  So  that  in  denying  the  things 
perceived  by  sense  an  existence  independent  of  a  sub- 
stance or  support  wherein  they  may  exist,  we  detract 
nothing  from  the  received  opinion  of  their  reality,  and 
are  guilty  of  no  innovation  in  that  respect.  All  the  dif- 
ference is  that,  according  to  us,  the  unthinking  beings 
perceived  by  sense  have  no  existence  distinct  from  being 
perceived,  and  cannot  therefore  exist  in  any  other  sub- 
stance than  those  unextended,  indivisible  substances,  or 
spirits,  which  act  and  think  and  perceive  them ;  whereas 
philosophers  vulgarly  hold  the  sensible  qualities  do  exist 
in  an  inert,  extended,  unperceiving  substance  which  they 
call  matter,  to  which  they  attribute  a  natural  subsistence, 
exterior  to  all  thinking  beings,  or  distinct  from  being  per- 
ceived by  any  mind  whatsoever,  even  the  eternal  mind  of 
the  Creator."  J 

4.  The  Consequences  of  the  Theory  for  Religion.  — 
And  now  for  some  of  the  further  advantages  which 
Berkeley's  system  is  to  bring.  In  the  first  place,  it  will 
banish  at  once  from  philosophy  a  number  of  difficult  ques- 
tions, about  which  men  have  puzzled  their  heads,  and 
wasted  their  time  to  no  purpose.  Such  questions  as  these, 
"  whether  corporeal  substance  can  think,"  "  whether  mat- 
ter be  infinitely  divisible,"  and  "  how  it  operates  on  spirit," 
as  well  as  all  the  problems  which  arise  from  assuming  the 
real  existence  of  space,  are  set  aside  at  once  as  meaningless. 
But,  also,  there  is  a  more  far-reaching  result,  which  for 
Berkeley  is  all-important  —  the  effect  upon  religion.  For 
Berkeley's  interest  in  philosophy  is  largely  a  religious  in- 
terest; and  it  seems  to  him  that  he  has,  in  his  Immaterial- 
ism,  a  potent  weapon  against  the  Agnosticism  and  Atheism 

1  §§  90, 91- 


362        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

of  his  day.  It  takes  away  the  ground,  in  the  first  place, 
from  Scepticism.  "  So  long  as  we  attribute  a  real  exist- 
ence to  unthinking  things,  distinct  from  their  being  per- 
ceived, it  is  not  only  impossible  for  us  to  know  with 
evidence  the  nature  of  any  real  unthinking  being,  but 
even  that  it  exists.  Hence  it  is  that  we  see  philosophers 
distrust  their  senses,  and  doubt  of  the  existence  of  heaven 
and  earth,  of  everything  they  see  or  feel,  even  of  their 
own  bodies."  J  If,  however,  I  mean  by  matter  that  which 
I  actually  perceive  by  the  senses,  it  is  as  impossible  for 
me  to  doubt  this  as  it  is  to  doubt  my  own  being. 

And  as  the  doctrine  of  matter  "  has  been  the  main  pillar 
of  Scepticism,  so  likewise,  on  the  same  foundation,  have 
been  raised  all  the  impious  schemes  of  Atheism  and  Irre- 
ligion.  .  .  .  All  these  monstrous  systems  have  so  visible 
and  necessary  a  dependence  on  it  that,  when  this  corner- 
stone is  once  removed,  the  whole  fabric  cannot  choose  but 
fall  to  the  ground,  insomuch  that  it  is  no  longer  worth 
while  to  bestow  a  particular  consideration  on  the  absurdi- 
ties of  every  wretched  sect  of  Atheists."  2  Do  we  ask  for 
proof  of  God  ?  It  lies  immediately  before  us,  says  Berke- 
ley, and  is  just  as  certain  as  the  proof  of  our  neighbor's 
existence.  For  as  we  do  not  see  directly  the  very  self  of 
another  man,  but  only  certain  bodily  movements,  which 
stand  as  signs  to  us  of  what  is  present  in  his  mind,  so 
is  not  nature  a  Divine  Visual  Language  in  which  God 
speaks  to  us,  a  system  of  signs  which,  by  their  order  and 
coherency,  tell  indubitably  of  a  Mind  behind  them  ? 

"  It  seems  to  be  a  general  pretence  of  the  unthinking 
herd  that  they  cannot  see  God.  Could  we  but  see  Him, 
say  they,  as  we  see  a  man,  we  should  believe  that  He 
is,  and  believing  obey  His  commands.  But  alas,  we  need 
only  open  our  eyes  to  see  the  Sovereign  Lord  of  all  things, 
with  a  more  full  and  clear  view  than  we  do  any  one  of  our 
fellow-creatures.  A  human  spirit  or  person  is  not  per- 
ceived by  sense,  as  not  being  an  idea  ;  when  therefore  we 

1  §  88.  2  §  92- 


The  Growth  of  Empiricism  363 

see  the  color,  size,  figure,  and  motions  of  a  man,  we  per- 
ceive only  certain  sensations  or  ideas  excited  in  our  own 
minds ;  and  these  being  exhibited  to  our  view  in  sundry 
distinct  collections,  serve  to  mark  out  unto  us  the  existence 
of  finite  and  created  spirits  like  ourselves.  Hence  it  is 
plain  we  do  not  see  a  man  —  if  by  man  is  meant  that  which 
lives,  moves,  perceives,  and  thinks  as  we  do  —  but  only 
such  a  certain  collection  of  ideas  as  directs  us  to  think 
there  is  a  distinct  principle  of  thought  and  motion,  like  to 
ourselves,  accompanying  and  represented  by  it.  And  after 
the  same  manner  we  see  God ;  all  the  difference  is  that, 
whereas  some  one  finite  and  narrow  assemblage  of  ideas 
denotes  a  particular  human  mind,  whithersoever  we  direct 
our  view,  we  do  at  all  times,  and  in  all  places,  perceive 
manifest  tokens  of  the  Divinity :  everything  we  see,  hear, 
feel,  or  anywise  perceive  by  sense,  being  a  sign  or  effect  of 
the  power  of  God ;  as  is  our  perception  of  those  very  mo- 
tions which  are  produced  by  men."  * 

By  any  true  definition  of  language,  therefore,  God 
speaks  to  us  as  directly  as  one  man  to  another.  "  Since 
you  cannot  deny  that  the  great  Mover  and  Author  of  na- 
ture constantly  explaineth  Himself  to  the  eyes  of  men  by 
the  sensible  intervention  of  arbitrary  signs,  which  have  no 
similitude  or  connection  with  the  things  signified ;  so  as, 
by  compounding  and  disposing  them,  to  suggest  and  ex- 
hibit an  endless  variety  of  objects,  differing  in  nature, 
time,  and  place ;  thereby  informing  and  directing  men  how 
to  act  with  respect  to  things  distant  and  future,  as  well  as 
near  and  present.  In  consequence,  I  say,  of  your  own 
sentiments  and  concessions,  you  have  as  much  reason  to 
think  the  Universal  Agent  or  God  speaks  to  your  eyes,  as 
you  can  have  for  thinking  any  particular  person  speaks  to 
your  ears."  a 

"  It  is  therefore  plain  that  nothing  can  be  more  evident 
to  any  one  that  is  capable  of  the  least  reflection,  than  the 
existence  of  God,  or  a  Spirit  who  is  intimately  present  to 

1  §  148.  a  Alciphron,  Fourth  Dialogue.     (Eraser,  Selections,  p.  271.) 


364        A  Students  History  of  Philosophy 

our  minds  —  producing  in  them  all  that  variety  of  ideas  or 
sensations  which  continually  affect  us,  on  whom  we  have 
an  absolute  and  entire  dependence,  in  short,  '  in  whom  we 
live,  and  move,  and  have  our  being.'  That  the  discovery 
of  this  great  truth,  which  lies  so  near  and  obvious  to  the 
mind,  should  be  attained  to  by  the  reason  of  so  very  few, 
is  a  sad  instance  of  the  stupidity  and  inattention  of  men, 
who,  though  they  are  surrounded  with  such  clear  manifes- 
tations of  the  Deity,  are  yet  so  little  affected  by  them  that 
they  seem,  as  it  were,  blinded  with  excess  of  light."  1 

5.  Sensation  and  Reason.  —  If  we  follow  the  line  of 
main  emphasis  in  Berkeley's  theory  of  knowledge,  it  would 
seem  to  lead  to  the  position  that  we  can  know  only  our 
own  ideas.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  this  does  not  fully  repre- 
sent his  belief.  There  was  for  him,  as  has  been  seen, 
knowledge  of  other  reality  as  well.  We  can  know  ourselves, 
to  begin  with,  and  our  activities  and  relations  to  ideas,  and 
these  are  nothing  that  can  be  represented  by  any  definite 
image.  "We  may  be  said  to  have  some  knowledge  or 
notion  of  our  own  minds,  of  spirits  and  active  beings, 
whereof  in  a  strict  sense  we  have  not  ideas."  2  And  as 
Berkeley's  thought  developed,  he  came  to  lay  more  and 
more  stress  on  the  intellectual  framework  of  experience, 
by  which  we  rise  to  truth  and  God,  and  less  upon  the  side 
of  sensations.  "  We  know  a  thing  when  we  understand  it ; 
and  we  understand  it  when  we  can  interpret  or  tell  what  it 
signifies.  Strictly  the  sense  knows  nothing."3  But  his  en- 
tire consistency  here  is  perhaps  a  little  dubious.  Often, 
at  least,  he  seems  to  speak  as  if  the  point  from  which  we 
start,  in  knowledge,  were  a  mass  of  unrelated  "  ideas  "  or 
sensations,  and  as  if  from  these,  by  mere  "experience," 
we  finally  arrive  at  their  interpretation  as  the  language  of 
a  divine  Author.  But  if  such  a  starting-point  were  granted, 
should  we  ever  be  in  a  position  to  reach,  not  merely  this 
conclusion,  but  any  conclusion  at  all?  Could  we  be  as- 
sured of  the  existence  of  any  reality  beyond  the  ideas 

1  Treatise,  §  149.  2  §  89.  *  Siris,  §  253. 


The  Growth  of  Empiricism  365 

themselves, — of  God,  or  even  of  other  men?  At  any 
rate,  the  logic  of  this  "  new  way  of  ideas  "  needed  to  be 
more  rigidly  examined  than  it  hitherto  had  been,  to  deter- 
mine just  where  it  was  to  lead.  It  was  necessary  that  the 
consequences  of  Empiricism  and  Sensationalism  —  the  con- 
sequences, that  is,  of  the  attempt  to  found  experience  on  a 
mere  chance  connection  of  isolated  sensations  — should 
be  carried  out  to  their  final  issue.  It  was  this  work  which 
Hume  accomplished,  and  which  constitutes  his  great  sig- 
nificance in  the  history  of  thought. 

LITERATURE 

Berkeley,  Chief  Works :  New  Theory  of  Vision  (1709);  Principles 
of  Human  Knowledge  (1710)  ;  Three  Dialogues  between  Hylas  and 
Philonous  (1713)  ;  Alciphron  (1732)  ;  Siris  (1744). 

Fraser,  Selections. 

Fraser,  Berkeley. 

Huxley,  Critiques  and  Addresses. 

Mill,  Essays. 

Morris,  British  Thought  and  Thinkers. 

McCosh,  Realistic  Philosophy. 

Tower,  Relation  of  Berkeley^  Later  to  his  Earlier  idealism. 


§  33.     Hume 

David  Hume  was  a  Scotchman,  born  in  Edinburgh  in 
1711.  His  life  was  comparatively  uneventful;  the  main 
interest  in  it  centres  in  his  literary  and  philosophical  work 
and  associations.  His  character  was  a  mixture  of  the 
most  kindly  tolerance  and  good  nature,  with  a  shrewdness 
and  penetrating  critical  insight  in  certain  directions.  He 
was,  however,  lacking  on  the  idealistic  and  imaginative 
sides,  and,  consequently,  in  constructive  ability.  His  own 
estimate  of  his  character  is  essentially  just.  "To  conclude 
historically  with  my  own  character,  I  am,  or  rather  was 
(for  that  is  the  style  I  must  now  use  in  speaking  of  my- 
self, which  emboldens  me  the  more  to  speak  my  senti- 


366        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

ments);  I  was,  I  say,  a  man  of  mild  disposition,  of 
command  of  temper,  of  an  open,  social,  and  cheerful 
humor,  capable  of  attachment,  but  little  susceptible  of 
enmity,  and  of  great  moderation  in  all  my  passions.  Even 
my  love  of  literary  fame,  my  ruling  passion,  never  soured 
my  temper,  notwithstanding  my  frequent  disappointments. 
My  company  was  not  unacceptable  to  the  young  and 
careless,  as  well  as  to  the  studious  and  literary;  and 
as  I  took  a  particular  pleasure  in  the  company  of  modest 
women,  I  had  no  reason  to  be  displeased  with  the  recep- 
tion I  met  with  from  them.  In  a  word,  though  most  men, 
anywise  eminent,  have  found  reason  to  complain  of  cal- 
umny, I  never  was  touched,  or  even  attacked,  by  her  bale- 
ful tooth ;  and  though  I  wantonly  exposed  myself  to  the 
rage  of  both  civil  and  religious  factions,  they  seemed  to  be 
disarmed  in  my  behalf  of  their  wonted  fury.  My  friends 
never  had  occasion  to  vindicate  any  one  circumstance  of 
my  character  and  conduct;  not  but  that  the  zealots,  we 
may  well  suppose,  would  have  been  glad  to  invent  and 
propagate  any  story  to  my  disadvantage,  but  they  could 
never  find  any  which  they  thought  would  wear  the  face  of 
probability."  Hume  died  calmly  and  cheerfully,  expect- 
ing his  end,  in  1776. 

i.  The  Analysis  of  Knowledge.  —  It  has  already  been 
said  that  the  significance  of  Hume's  philosophy  lies  in  the 
way  in  which  he  carries  the  empirical  and  sensationalistic 
tendencies  in  the  thought  of  Locke  and  Berkeley  to  their 
conclusion.  The  psychology,  accordingly,  on  which  he 
bases  his  results,  follows  that  of  his  predecessors,  except 
that  it  is  more  unambiguous.  Every  possible  object  of 
knowledge  is  reduced  either  to  an  impression  or  an  idea. 
"The  difference  between  these  consists  in  the  degrees  of 
force  and  liveliness  with  which  they  strike  upon  the  mind, 
and  make  their  way  into  our  thought  or  consciousness. 
Those  perceptions  which  enter  with  most  force  and  vio- 
lence, we  may  name  impressions ;  and  under  this  name  I 
comprehend  all  our  sensations,  passions,  and  emotions,  as 


The  Growth  of  Empiricism  367 

they  make  their  first  appearance  in  the  soul.  By  ideas  I 
mean  the  faint  images  of  these  in  thinking  and  reasoning ; 
such  as,  for  instance,  are  all  the  perceptions  excited  by 
the  present  discourse,  excepting  only  those  which  arise 
from  the  sight  and  touch,  and  excepting  the  immediate 
pleasure  or  uneasiness  it  may  occasion.  I  believe  it  will 
not  be  very  necessary  to  employ  many  words  in  explaining 
this  distinction.  Every  one  of  himself  will  readily  perceive 
the  difference  betwixt  feeling  and  thinking."1  In  general, 
ideas  seem  to  correspond  closely  to  impressions,  differing 
only  in  the  degree  of  force  and  vivacity. 

There  is  another  division  among  ideas  which  also  is  self- 
evident —  that  between  simple  and  complex  ideas.  And 
this  last  division  tends  to  modify  somewhat  the  statement 
just  made,  about  the  resemblance  between  ideas  and  im- 
pressions. "  I  observe  that  many  of  our  complex  ideas 
never  had  impressions  that  corresponded  to  them,  and  that 
many  of  our  complex  impressions  never  are  exactly  copied 
in  ideas.  I  can  imagine  to  myself  such  a  city  as  the  New 
Jerusalem,  whose  pavement  is  gold,  and  walls  are  rubies, 
though  I  never  saw  any  such.  I  perceive,  therefore,  that 
though  there  is  in  general  a  great  resemblance  betwixt  our 
complex  impressions  and  ideas,  yet  the  rule  is  not  univer- 
sally true,  that  they  are  exact  copies  of  each  other.  We 
may  next  consider  how  the  case  stands  with  our  simple 
perceptions.  After  the  most  accurate  examinations  of 
which  I  am  capable,  I  venture  to  affirm  that  the  rule  here 
holds  without  any  exception,  and  that  every  simple  idea 
has  a  simple  impression  which  resembles  it;  and  every 
simple  impression  a  correspondent  idea.  That  idea  of  red 
which  we  form  in  the  dark,  and  that  impression  which 
strikes  our  eyes  in  sunshine,  differ  only  in  degree,  not  in 
nature."2  And  as  complex  ideas  go  back  ultimately  to 
simple,  we  may  affirm,  in  general,  that  the  two  species  of 
perception  are  exactly  correspondent.  Accordingly  we 
are  led  to  the  general  conclusion  that  all  our  simple  ideas 

1  Treatise  of  Human  Nature,  Bk.  I,  Ft  I,  I.  *  Ibid. 


368        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

in  their  first  appearance  are  derived  from  simple  impres- 
sions, which  they  exactly  represent. 

These  impressions  and  ideas,  then,  are  the  sole  contents 
of  the  human  mind,  all  of  them  going  back  originally  to 
impressions.  And  if,  accordingly,  we  are  to  be  able  to  es- 
tablish the  reality  of  any  supposed  fact,  we  must  be  in  a 
position  to  point  out  the  definite,  concrete  impression  which 
it  is,  or  reproduces.  "  Since  nothing  is  ever  present  to  the 
mind  but  perceptions,  and  since  all  ideas  are  derived  from 
something  antecedently  present  to  the  mind,  it  follows  that 
it  is  impossible  for  us  so  much  as  to  conceive  or  form  an 
idea  of  anything  specifically  different  from  ideas  and  im- 
pressions. Let  us  fix  our  attention  out  of  ourselves  as 
much  as  possible;  let  us  chase  our  imaginations  to  the 
heavens,  or  to  the  utmost  limits  of  the  universe :  we  never 
really  advance  a  step  beyond  ourselves,  nor  can  conceive 
any  kind  of  existence  but  those  perceptions  which  have 
appeared  in  that  narrow  compass.  This  is  the  universe  of 
the  imagination,  nor  have  we  any  idea  but  what  is  there 
produced." J 

2.  Criticism  of  the  Self.  —  Now  on  these  principles  it  of 
course  follows  that,  as  Berkeley  clearly  pointed  out,  there 
can  be  no  such  thing  as  a  material  substance ;  reality  is  coex- 
tensive with  ideas.  "  I  would  fain  ask  those  philosophers 
who  found  so  much  of  their  reasonings  on  the  distinction 
of  substance  and  accident,  and  imagine  we  have  clear  ideas 
of  each,  whether  the  idea  of  substance  be  derived  from  the 
impressions  of  sensation  or  reflection.  If  it  be  conveyed 
to  us  by  our  senses,  I  ask,  which  of  them;  and  after  what 
manner  ?  If  it  be  perceived  by  the  eyes,  it  must  be  a  color  ; 
if  by  the  ears,  a  sound  ;  if  by  the  palate,  a  taste ;  and  so  of 
the  other  senses.  But  I  believe  none  will  assert  that  sub- 
stance is  either  a  color,  or  sound,  or  a  taste.  The  idea  of 
substance  must  therefore  be  derived  from  an  impression  of 
reflection,  if  it  really  exist.  But  the  impressions  of  reflec- 
tion resolve  themselves  into  our  passions  and  emotions; 
1  Bk.  I,  Ft.  II,  6. 


The  Growth  of  Empiricism  369 

none  of  which  can  possibly  represent  a  substance.  We 
have,  therefore,  no  idea  of  substance,  distinct  from  that  of 
a  collection  of  particular  qualities,  nor  have  we  any  other 
meaning  when  we  either  talk  or  reason  concerning  it.  The 
idea  of  a  substance  is  nothing  but  a  collection  of  simple 
ideas  that  are  united  by  the  imagination,  and  have  a  par- 
ticular name  assigned  them." 1 

But  is  it  possible  to  stop  here  ?  Berkeley  had  insisted 
that  we  cannot  know  material  substance ;  but,  neverthe- 
less, he  had  supposed  that  spiritual  substance  —  the  self, 
or  soul  — we  can  know.  And  it  was  by  using  the  self  as 
an  instrument,  that  he  was  enabled  to  build  up  his  positive 
theory  of  reality.  But,  once  again,  we  must  ask,  What  is 
the  positive  impression  on  which  the  idea  of  a  self,  or 
spirit,  is  based  ?  Berkeley  had  himself  admitted  that  there 
is  no  such  impression.  The  self  is  not  an  idea.  We  only 
have  a  notion  of  it,  which  can  be  represented  by  no  definite 
image.  But  in  that  case,  the  self,  or  spiritual  substance, 
has  no  more  foundation  than  material  substance;  both 
must  go  together. 

"  I  desire  those  philosophers,  who  pretend  that  we  have 
an  idea  of  the  substance  of  our  minds,  to  point  out  the 
impression  that  produces  it,  and  tell  distinctly  after  what 
manner  that  impression  operates,  and  from  what  object  it 
is  derived.  Is  it  an  impression  of  sensation  or  of  reflection  ? 
Is  it  pleasant,  or  painful,  or  indifferent  ?  Does  it  attend  us 
at  all  times,  or  does  it  only  return  at  intervals  ?  If  at  inter- 
vals, at  what  times  principally  does  it  return,  and  by  what 
causes  is  it  produced  ?  " 2  "  There  are  some  philosophers 
who  imagine  we  are  every  moment  intimately  conscious  of 
what  we  call  our  SELF  ;  that  we  feel  its  existence,  and  its 
continuance  in  existence ;  and  are  certain,  beyond  the  evi- 
dence of  a  demonstration,  both  of  its  perfect  identity  and 
simplicity.  .  .  .  For  my  part,  when  I  enter  most  intimately 
into  what  I  call  myself,  I  always  stumble  on  some  particu- 
lar perception  or  other,  of  heat  or  cold,  light  or  shade,  love 

1  Bk.  I,  Pt.  I,  6.         2  Bk.  I,  Pt.  IV,  5  (Selby-Bigge's  edition,  p.  233). 
IB 


370        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

or  hatred,  pain  or  pleasure.  I  never  can  catch  myself  at 
any  time  without  a  perception,  and  never  can  observe 
anything  but  the  perception.  When  my  perceptions  are 
removed  for  any  time,  as  by  sound  sleep,  so  long  am  I  in- 
sensible of  myself,  and  may  truly  be  said  not  to  exist.  And 
were  all  my  perceptions  removed  by  death,  and  could  I 
neither  think,  nor  feel,  nor  see,  nor  love,  nor  hate  after  the 
dissolution  of  my  body,  I  should  be  entirely  annihilated, 
nor  do  I  conceive  what  is  farther  requisite  to  make  me  a 
perfect  nonentity.  If  any  one,  upon  serious  and  unpreju- 
diced reflection,  thinks  he  has  a  different  notion  of  himself ', 
I  must  confess  I  can  reason  no  longer  with  him.  All  I  can 
allow  him  is,  that  he  may  be  in  the  right  as  well  as  I,  and 
that  we  are  essentially  different  in  this  particular.  He 
may,  perhaps,  perceive  something  simple  and  continued, 
which  he  calls  himself t  though  I  am  certain  there  is  no 
such  principle  in  me. 

"  But,  setting  aside  some  metaphysicians  of  this  kind,  I 
may  venture  to  affirm  of  the  rest  of  mankind,  that  they  are 
nothing  but  a  bundle  or  collection  of  different  perceptions, 
which  succeed  each  other  with  an  inconceivable  rapidity, 
and  are  in  a  perpetual  flux  and  movement.  The  mind  is 
a  kind  of  theatre,  where  several  perceptions  successively 
make  their  appearance,  pass,  re-pass,  glide  away,  and  min- 
gle in  an  infinite  variety  of  postures  and  situations.  There 
is  properly  no  simplicity  in  it  at  one  time,  nor  identity  in 
different;  whatever  natural  propension  we  may  have  to 
imagine  that  simplicity  and  identity.  The  comparison  of 
the  theatre  must  not  mislead  us.  They  are  the  successive 
perceptions  only,  that  constitute  the  mind  ;  nor  have  we  the 
most  distant  notion  of  the  place  where  these  scenes  are 
represented,  or  of  the  materials  of  which  it  is  composed."  l 

3.    Criticism  of  the  Idea  of  Cause.  —  Now,  no  doubt  the 

belief  in  an  identical  self  needs  to  be  accounted  for.     This, 

however,  we  may  postpone  for  a  little,  and  take  up  what 

constitutes  Hume's  most  important  contribution  to  philos- 

i  Bk.  I,  Pt.  IV,  6  (p.  251). 


The  Growth  of  Empiricism  371 

ophy.  There  are  certain  all-pervading  relations,  outside  the 
relation  to  a  self,  which  seem  to  bind  together  our  ideas  to 
form  what  we  know  as  knowledge.  These  also  need  to  be 
criticised  in  order  to  make  sure  they  are  legitimate,  and  go 
back  to  definite  impressions.  And  since  the  most  important 
of  these  relations  is  that  of  cause  and  effect,  we  may  con- 
fine ourselves  to  this.  The  necessity  of  the  causal  rela- 
tion had  throughout  conditioned  Berkeley's  advance  from 
the  mere  existence  of  ideas,  to  his  conception  of  the  world 
as  a  universal  and  rational  system  of  signs,  dependent  upon 
God.  And  he  had  found,  as  he  thought,  a  basis  for  the 
reality  of  causation,  in  that  free  activity  of  Spirit,  which  is 
not,  indeed,  picturable  to  the  imagination,  but  which  is 
rationally  intelligible.  Is  this,  now,  to  be  justified  ?  Again 
there  is  the  same  inexorable  demand :  what  is  the  impres- 
sion from  which  the  idea  of  cause  is  derived  ?  Is  there 
any  such  impression  that  we  are  able  to  point  out  ? 

"  Let  us  cast  our  eye  on  any  two  objects,  which  we  call 
cause  and  effect,  and  turn  them  on  all  sides,  in  order  to 
find  that  impression  which  produces  an  idea  of  such  pro- 
digious consequence.  At  the  first  sight,  I  perceive  that  I 
must  not  search  for  it  in  any  of  the  particular  qualities  of 
the  object;  since,  whichever  of  these  qualities  I  pitch  on,  I 
find  some  object  that  is  not  possessed  of  it,  and  yet  falls 
under  the  denomination  of  cause  and  effect." J  The  idea, 
then,  must  be  derived  from  some  relation  among  objects. 
Now  when  I  examine  the  matter,  I  find  two  such  relations 
present  —  contiguity  and  succession.  But  these  do  not  ex- 
haust what  I  mean  by  causation ;  an  idea  may  be  contigu- 
ous and  prior  to  another  without  being  considered  as  its 
cause.  There  is  still  something  more  to  be  added  of  prime 
importance  ;  and  that  is,  the  idea  of  necessary  connection. 

But  what  is  the  nature  of  this  necessary  connection,  and 

where  is  the  impression  from  which  it  is  derived.     The 

more  we  consider  it,  the  more  puzzling  the  question  appears. 

Search  as  I  will,  the  only  relations  between  objects  that  I 

i  Bk.  I,  R.  Ill,  2  (p.  75). 


372        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

discern  are  "  those  of  contiguity  and  succession,  which  I 
have  already  regarded  as  imperfect  and  unsatisfactory. 
Shall  the  despair  of  success  make  me  assert  that  I  am  here 
possessed  of  an  idea  which  is  not  preceded  by  any  similar 
impression  ?  This  would  be  too  strong  a  proof  of  levity 
and  inconstancy,  since  the  contrary  principle  has  been 
already  so  firmly  established."  J  Let  us,  then,  turn  from 
the  question  for  the  moment,  and  take  up  two  related 
questions,  in  the  hope  that  these  may  incidentally  throw 
some  light  on  the  matter  in  hand.  First,  for  what  reason 
do  we  pronounce  it  necessary  that  everything  whose  exist- 
ence has  a  beginning  should  also  have  a  cause  ?  And, 
secondly,  why  do  we  conclude  that  such  particular  causes 
must  necessarily  have  such  particular  effects,  and  what  is 
the  nature  of  that  inference  we  draw  from  the  one  to  the 
other,  and  of  the  belief  we  repose  in  it  ? 

Hume  disposes  of  the  first  question  by  denying  that  the 
necessity  exists.  "  Here  is  an  argument  which  proves  at 
once  that  the  foregoing  proposition  is  neither  intuitively 
nor  demonstrably  certain.  .  .  .  As  all  distinct  ideas  are 
separable  from  each  other,  and  as  the  idea  of  cause  and 
effect  are  evidently  distinct,  'twill  be  easy  for  us  to  conceive 
any  object  to  be  non-existent  this  moment,  and  existent  the 
next,  without  conjoining  to  it  the  distinct  idea  of  a  cause 
or  productive  principle.  The  separation,  therefore,  of  the 
idea  of  a  cause  from  that  of  a  beginning  of  existence,  is 
plainly  possible  for  the  imagination  ;  and  consequently  the 
actual  separation  of  these  objects  is  so  far  possible,  that  it 
implies  no  contradiction  nor  absurdity ;  and  is,  therefore, 
incapable  of  being  refuted  by  any  reasoning  from  mere 
ideas ;  without  which  'tis  impossible  to  demonstrate  the 
necessity  of  a  cause."  2  Accordingly  we  shall  find,  upon 
examination,  that  every  demonstration  which  has  been 
produced  for  the  necessity  of  a  cause  is-  fallacious  and 
sophistical. 

If,  then,  the  belief  in  the  necessity  of  a  cause  does  not 
1  Bk.  I,  Pt.  Ill,  2  (P.  77).  n-  Bk.  I,  Pt.  Ill,  3. 


The  Growth  of  Empiricism  373 

go  back  to  any  intuitive  or  demonstrative  truth,  it  must 
come  from  observation  and  experience.  How  does  experi- 
ence give  rise  to  such  a  principle  ?  And  Hume  finds  it 
convenient  to  consider  this  in  the  less  general  form  :  why 
do  we  believe  that  any  particular  cause  will  necessarily  be 
followed  by  some  particular  effect  ?  And  the  only  reason 
there  can  be,  is  that  we  have  found  this  effect  to  follow  in 
the  past.  "  Thus  we  remember  to  have  seen  that  species 
of  object  we  call  flame,  and  to  have  felt  that  species  of  sensa- 
tion we  call  heat.  We  likewise  call  to  mind  their  constant 
conjunction  in  all  past  instances.  Without  any  farther 
ceremony,  we  call  the  one  cause  and  the  other  effect,  and 
infer  the  existence  of  the  one  from  that  of  the  other." 

"  Thus  in  advancing,  we  have  insensibly  discovered  a 
new  relation  betwixt  cause  and  effect,  when  we  least  ex- 
pected it.  This  relation  is  their  constant  conjunction. 
Contiguity  and  succession  are  not  sufficient  to  make  us 
pronounce  any  two  objects  to  be  cause  and  effect,  unless 
we  perceive  that  these  two  relations  are  preserved  in  sev- 
eral instances.  We  may  now  see  the  advantage  of  quitting 
the  direct  survey  of  this  relation,  in  order  to  discover  the 
nature  of  that  necessary  connection,  which  makes  so  essen- 
tial a  part  of  it.  ...  Having  found  that  after  the  discov- 
ery of  the  constant  conjunction  of  any  objects,  we  always 
draw  an  inference  from  one  object  to  another,  we  shall  now 
examine  the  nature  of  that  inference,  and  of  the  transition 
from  the  impression  to  the  idea.  Perhaps  'twill  appear  in 
the  end,  that  the  necessary  connection  depends  on  the 
inference,  instead  of  the  inference's  depending  on  the 
necessary  connection." 1 

First,  then,  is  the  transition,  which  inference  involves, 
due  to  the  reason,  or  to  the  mere  association  of  ideas  in 
the  imagination  ?  If  reason  determined  us,  it  could  only 
be  in  the  form  of  a  conclusion  from  the  premise  that  nature 
is  uniform,  or  that  instances  of  which  we  have  had  no  ex- 
perience must  resemble  those  of  which  we  have  had  expe- 
i  Bk.  I,  Ft.  Ill,  6  (p.  87). 


374        A  Students  History  of  Philosophy 

rience.  But  this  is  something  it  is  entirely  impossible  to 
establish,  even  with  probability.  The  inference  must, 
therefore,  be  an  affair  of  the  imagination.  At  first  this 
seems  unlikely,  in  view  of  the  strength  of  belief,  when 
compared  with  that  which  attaches  to  the  mere  fancies  of 
the  imagination.  Hume  is  thus  led  to  a  consideration  of 
the  nature  of  belief ;  and  he  finds  that  the  only  difference 
between  an  idea  we  believe,  and  a  mere  fancy,  is  the  supe- 
rior force  and  liveliness  of  the  former.  A  belief  is  some- 
what more  than  a  simple  idea ;  it  is  a  particular  manner  of 
forming  an  idea  ;  and  the  same  idea  can  only  be  varied  by 
a  variation  of  its  degree  of  force  and  vivacity. 

What  is  it,  then,  that  makes  the  idea  of  an  effect  so 
lively  that  I  believe  in  it  ?  This  goes  back  again  to  the 
general  principle,  that  any  present  impression  has  the 
power,  not  only  of  transporting  the  mind  to  such  ideas  as 
are  related  to  it,  but  also  of  communicating  to  them  a  share 
of  its  own  force  and  vivacity.  The  cause  stands  for  such 
a  present  impression  ;  and  the  peculiar  strength  of  belief 
which  attaches  to  the  causal  inference  is  due  to  the  fact 
that,  by  constant  conjunction,  the  relation  has  acquired  the 
force  of  custom,  or  habit. 

Now  as  all  objective  knowledge,  that  goes  beyond  pres- 
ent impressions,  is  based  upon  causation,  custom  governs 
all  our  thinking,  and  custom  only.  "  Thus  all  probable 
reasoning  is  nothing  but  a  species  of  sensation.  'Tis  not 
solely  in  poetry  and  music  we  must  follow  our  taste  and 
sentiment,  but  likewise  in  philosophy.  When  I  am  con- 
vinced of  any  principle,  it  is  only  an  idea  which  strikes 
more  strongly  upon  me.  When  I  give  the  preference  to 
one  set  of  arguments  above  another,  I  do  nothing  but 
decide  from  my  feeling  concerning  the  superiority  of  their 
influence.  Objects  have  no  discoverable  connection  to- 
gether ;  nor  is  it  from  any  other  principle  but  custom,  that 
we  can  draw  any  inference  from  the  appearance  of  one  to 
the  existence  of  another." 1 

1  Bk.  I,  Pt.  Ill,  8  (p.  103). 


The  Growth  of  Empiricism  375 

We  are  now  ready  to  go  back  to  the  idea  of  necessary 
connection,  and  see  what  light  has  been  cast  upon  it.  To 
sum  up  the  argument  briefly  :  So  long  as  I  regard  one 
instance  of  causation  only,  I  cannot  discover  anything 
beyond  the  relations  of  contiguity  and  succession.  "  I 
therefore  enlarge  my  view  to  comprehend  several  instances, 
where  I  find  like  objects  always  existing  in  like  relations 
of  contiguity  and  succession.  At  first  sight  this  seems 
to  serve  but  little  to  my  purpose.  The  reflection  on 
several  instances  only  repeats  the  same  objects,  and 
therefore  can  never  give  rise  to  a  new  idea.  But  upon 
farther  inquiry,  I  find  that  the  repetition  is  not  in  every 
particular  the  same,  but  produces  a  new  impression,  and 
by  that  means  the  idea  which  I  at  present  examine.  For, 
after  a  frequent  repetition,  I  find  that,  upon  the  appear- 
ance of  one  of  the  objects,  the  mind  is  determined  by  cus- 
tom to  consider  its  usual  attendant,  and  to  consider  it  in  a 
stronger  light  upon  account  of  its  relation  to  the  first  ob- 
ject. It  is  this  impression,  then,  or  determination,  which 
affords  me  the  idea  of  necessity."  1 

Now  this  conclusion  amounts  to  neither  more  nor  less 
than  this  :  that  what  we  call  power,  or  force,  or  causal 
efficiency,  exists  not  at  all  in  objects,  but  only  in  the  mind. 
In  a  discussion  in  which  we  need  not  follow  him,  Hume 
shows  how  all  attempts  to  give  a  positive  content  to  these 
terms,  as  objective  realities,  have  failed.  Once  more, 
there  must  be  some  impression  at  the  basis  of  the  term,  if 
it  represents  anything  real ;  and  there  is  nothing  in  objects 
to  supply  this  impression.  "  Since  the  idea  of  power  is  a 
new  original  idea,  not  to  be  found  in  any  one  instant,  and 
which  yet  arises  from  the  repetition  of  several  instances, 
it  follows  that  the  repetition  alone  has  not  that  effect,  but 
must  either  discover  or  produce  something  new,  which  is 
the  source  of  that  idea."  Now  it  is  evident  that  the  repe- 
tition of  like  objects  in  like  relations  of  succession  and 
contiguity,  discovers  nothing  new  in  any  of  them  ;  and 
*  Bk.  I,  Pt.  Ill,  14  (P.  155). 


376        A  Students  History  of  Philosophy 

it  is  equally  certain  that  this  repetition  produces  nothing 
new,  either  in  these  objects  or  in  any  external  body. 
"  These  ideas,  therefore,  represent  not  anything  that  does 
or  can  belong  to  the  objects  which  are  constantly  con- 
joined. But  though  the  several  resembling  instances, 
which  give  rise  to  the  idea  of  power,  have  no  influence  on 
each  other,  and  can  never  produce  any  new  quality  in  the 
object,  yet  the  observation  of  this  resemblance  produces  a 
new  impression  in  the  mind,  which  is  its  real  model.  For 
after  we  have  observed  the  resemblance  in  a  sufficient 
number  of  instances,  we  immediately  feel  a  determination 
of  the  mind  to  pass  from  one  object  to  its  usual  attendant, 
and  conceive  it  in  a  stronger  light  upon  account  of  that 
relation.  This  determination  is  the  only  effect  of  the  re- 
semblance ;  and  therefore  must  be  the  same  with  power 
or  efficacy,  whose  idea  is  derived  from  the  resemblance. 
The  several  instances  of  resembling  conjunctions  lead  us 
into  the  notion  of  power  and  necessity.  These  instances 
are  in  themselves  totally  distinct  from  each  other,  and 
have  no  union  but  in  the  mind  which  observes  them,  and 
collects  their  ideas.  Necessity,  then,  is  the  effect  of  this 
observation,  and  is  nothing  but  an  internal  impression  of 
the  mind,  or  a  determination  to  carry  our  thoughts  from 
one  object  to  another.  .  .  .  Necessity  is  something  that 
exists  in  the  mind,  not  in  objects ;  nor  is  it  possible  for  us 
ever  to  form  the  most  distant  idea  of  it,  considered  as  a 
quality  in  bodies." 

"  I  am  sensible  that,  of  all  the  paradoxes  which  I  have 
had,  or  shall  hereafter  have  occasion  to  advance  in  the 
course  of  this  treatise,  the  present  one  is  the  most  violent, 
and  that  'tis  merely  by  dint  of  solid  proof  and  reasoning  I 
can  ever  hope  it  will  have  admission,  and  overcome  the  in- 
veterate prejudices  of  mankind.  .  .  .  The  contrary  notion 
is  so  riveted  in  the  mind,  that  I  doubt  not  but  my  sentiments 
will  be  treated  by  many  as  extravagant  and  ridiculous. 
What !  the  efficacy  of  causes  lie  in  the  determination  of 
the  mind !  As  if  causes  did  not  operate  entirely  inde- 


The  Growth  of  Empiricism  377 

pendent  of  the  mind,  and  would  not  continue  their  oper- 
ation, even  though  there  was  no  mind  existent  to  con- 
template them,  or  reason  concerning  them.  Thought  may 
well  depend  upon  causes  for  its  operation,  but  not  causes 
on  thought.  ...  I  can  only  reply  that  the  case  here  is 
much  the  same  as  if  a  blind  man  should  pretend  to  find 
a  great  many  absurdities  in  the  supposition  that  the  color 
of  scarlet  is  not  the  same  with  the  sound  of  a  trumpet,  nor 
light  the  same  with  solidity.  If  we  have  really  no  idea  of 
a  power  or  efficacy  in  any  object,  or  of  any  real  connection 
betwixt  causes  and  effects,  'twill  be  to  little  purpose  to 
prove  that  an  efficacy  is  necessary  in  all  operations.  We 
do  not  understand  our  own  meaning  in  talking  so,  but  igno- 
rantly  confound  ideas  which  are  entirely  distinct  from  each 
other.  I  am,  indeed,  ready  to  allow  that  there  may  be 
several  qualities,  both  in  material  and  immaterial  objects, 
with  which  we  are  utterly  unacquainted  ;  and  if  we  please 
to  call  these  power  or  efficacy,  'twill  be  of  little  consequence 
to  the  world.  But  when,  instead  of  meaning  these  un- 
known qualities,  we  make  the  terms  of  power  and  efficacy 
signify  something  of  which  we  have  a  clear  idea,  and  which 
is -incompatible  with  these  objects  to  which  we  apply  it, 
obscurity  and  error  begin  then  to  take  place,  and  we  are 
led  astray  by  a  false  philosophy.  This  is  the  case  when 
we  transfer  the  determination  of  the  thought  to  external 
objects,  and  suppose  any  real  intelligible  connection  be- 
twixt them  ;  that  being  a  quality  which  can  only  belong  to 
the  mind  that  considers  them."  l 

•  4.  Origin  of  a  Belief  in  the  External  World,  —  In  dis- 
cussing the  nature  of  causation,  we  have  frequently  been 
led  into  falling  in  with  the  popular  notion,  and  speak- 
ing of  objects  as  if  they  existed  outside  the  mind.  It  is 
time  to  recall  the  fact,  however,  that  in  reality  it  is  only 
our  own  ideas  that  we  can  directly  know.  And  since  the 
principle  of  causation  has  now  been  resolved  into  mere  ex- 
pectation, due  to  custom,  there  is  no  way  of  getting  outside 
1  Bk.  I,  Pt.  in,  14  (pp.  163-168). 


378        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

these  purely  subjective  facts  of  consciousness.  The  world, 
as  with  Berkeley,  is  a  complex  of  sensations  ;  but  not  an 
ordered  and  interpretable  complex,  which  speaks  to  us 
the  language  of  a  divine  Author.  By  no'  possibility  can  it 
logically  lead  us  beyond  itself  and  such  empirically  dis- 
covered, habitual  sequences  as  experience  reveals.  But 
how,  then,  do  we  come  to  think  that  it  is  otherwise  ?  How 
out  of  a  flux  of  unrelated  feelings,  never  repeated,  do  we 
evolve  an  independent  world  of  identical  things,  and  iden- 
tical selves  ? 

Briefly,  Hume's  answer  is  something  as  follows  :  "  We 
may  observe  that  'tis  neither  upon  account  of  the  involun- 
tariness  of  certain  impressions,  as  is  commonly  supposed, 
nor  of  their  superior  force  and  violence,  that  we  attribute 
to  them  a  reality  and  continued  existence,  which  we  refuse 
to  others  that  are  voluntary  and  feeble.  For  'tis  evident 
our  pains  and  pleasures,  our  passions  and  affections,  which 
we  never  suppose  to  have  any  existence  beyond  our  per- 
ception, operate  with  greater  violence,  and  are  equally 
involuntary,  as  the  impressions  of  figure  and  extension, 
color  and  sound,  which  we  suppose  to  be  permanent  beings. 
The  heat  of  a  fire,  when  moderate,  is  supposed  to  exist  in 
the  fire ;  but  the  pain  which  it  causes  on  a  near  approach, 
is  not  taken  to  have  any  being  except  in  the  perception."  1 

These  vulgar  opinions,  then,  being  rejected,  we  must 
search  for  some  other  hypothesis.  And  Hume  finds  it 
convenient  to  divide  the  question  into  two :  what  is  the 
cause  of  our  belief,  first  in  the  continued  existence  of  ob- 
jects, and,  second,  in  their  distinct  existence?  And  after 
a  little  examination,  we  shall  find  that  all  those  objects  to 
which  we  attribute  a  continued  existence,  have  a  peculiar 
constancy  ;  or,  if  they  change,  they  show  a  coherence  in  their 
changes.  "  These  mountains,  and  houses,  and  trees  which 
lie  at  present  under  my  eye,  have  always  appeared  to  me 
in  the  same  order;  and  when  I  lose  sight  of  them  by 
shutting  my  eyes,  or  turning  my  head,  I  soon  after  find 
1  Bk.  i,  Pt.  IV,  2  (p.  194). 


The  Growth  of  Empiricism  379 

them  return  upon  me  without  the  least  alteration.  My 
bed  and  table,  my  books  and  papers,  present  themselves 
in  the  same  manner,  and  change  not  upon  account  of  any 
interruption  in  my  perceiving  them."  So  also,  "  when  I 
return  to  my  chamber  after  an  hour's  absence,  though 
I  find  not  my  fire  in  the  same  situation  in  which  I  left 
it,  still  I  am  accustomed  in  other  instances  to  see  a  like 
alteration  produced  in  a  like  time,  whether  I  am  present 
or  absent." 

But  now  how  does  this  constancy  and  coherence  of  cer- 
tain impressions  go  about  to  produce  so  extraordinary  an 
opinion  as  that  of  the  continued  existence  of  body  ?  The 
answer  is  found  in  a  peculiar  tendency  of  the  imagination. 
"  When  we  have  been  accustomed  to  observe  a  constancy 
in  certain  impressions,  and  have  found  that  the  perception 
of  sun  or  ocean,  for  instance,  returns  upon  us  after  an  ab- 
sence or  annihilation  with  like  parts,  and  in  a  like  order, 
as  at  its  first  appearance,  we  are  not  apt  to  regard  these 
interrupted  perceptions  as  different  (which  they  really 
are),  but  on  the  contrary  consider  them  as  individually  the 
same,  upon  account  of  their  resemblance."  "This  resem- 
blance is  observed  in  a  thousand  instances,  and  naturally 
connects  together  our  ideas  of  these  interrupted  perceptions 
by  the  strongest  relation,  and  conveys  the  mind  with  an 
easy  transition  from  one  to  another.  An  easy  transition 
or  passage  of  the  imagination,  along  the  ideas  of  these 
different  and  interrupted  perceptions,  is  almost  the  same 
disposition  of  mind  with  that  in  which  we  consider  one 
constant  and  uninterrupted  perception.  The  thought  slides 
along  the  succession  with  equal  facility  as  if  it  considered 
only  one  object ;  and  therefore  confounds  the  succession 
with  the  identity."  And  so  from  this  propensity  arises 
the  fiction  of  the  continued  existence  of  objects ;  which  is 
intended  to  disguise  as  much  as  possible  the  interruption 
of  our  ideas,  and  enable  us  to  gratify  our  inclination  to 
regard  them  as  identical.  The  same  thing  comes  about 
from  the  side  of  coherence.  "  The  imagination,  when  set 


380        A  Student 's  History  of  Philosophy 

into  any  train  of  thinking,  is  apt  to  continue  even  when 
its  object  fails  it,  and,  like  a  galley  put  in  motion  by  the 
oars,  carries  on  its  course  without  any  new  impulse.  Ob- 
jects have  a  certain  coherence  even  as  they  appear  to  our 
senses ;  but  this  coherence  is  much  greater  and  more  uni- 
form, if  we  suppose  the  objects  to  have  a  continued  exist- 
ence ;  and  as  the  mind  is  once  in  the  train  of  observing 
an  uniformity  among  objects,  it  naturally  continues,  till  it 
renders  the  uniformity  as  complete  as  possible." 

But  now,  although  the  imagination  has  a  strong  tendency 
thus  to  regard  objects  as  identical,  and  possessing  a  con- 
tinued existence,  just  as  soon  as  we  consider  the  matter, 
must  not  our  reason  tell  us  that  it  is  not  so  ?  Since  our 
perceptions,  and  objects,  are  one  and  the  same  thing,  the 
actual  interruption  of  our  ideas  is  always  there,  to  contra- 
dict the  propensity  for  imagining  them  continuous.  In- 
stead of  rejecting  this  last  opinion,  however,  as  logically 
they  should  have  done,  men  have  striven  to  retain  both  be- 
liefs ;  and  a  conflict  has  necessarily  been  the  result.  "  In 
order  to  set  ourselves  at  ease  in  this  particular,  we  contrive 
a  new  hypothesis,  which  seems  to  comprehend  both  these 
principles  of  reason  and  imagination.  This  hypothesis  is 
the  philosophical  one  of  the  double  existence  of  perceptions 
and  objects ;  which  pleases  our  reason,  in  allowing  that 
our  dependent  perceptions  are  interrupted  and  different ; 
and  at  the  same  time  is  agreeable  to  the  imagination,  in 
attributing  a  continued  existence  to  something  else,  which 
we  call  objects.  This  philosophical  system,  therefore,  is 
the  monstrous  offspring  of  two  principles  which  are  con- 
trary to  each  other,  which  are  both  at  once  embraced  by 
the  mind,  and  which  are  unable  mutually  to  destroy  each 
other.  Not  being  able  to  reconcile  these  two  enemies,  we 
endeavor  to  set  ourselves  at  ease  as  much  as  possible,  by 
successively  granting  to  each  whatever  it  demands,  and  by 
feigning  a  double  existence,  where  each  may  find  some- 
thing that  has  all  the  conditions  it  desires."1  In  a  some- 
1  Bk.  I,  R.  IV,  2  (pp.  194-198,  215). 


The  Growth  of  Empiricism  381 

what  similar  way,  Hume  goes  on  to  account  for  the  fiction 
of  a  substantial  soul  beneath  our  ideas. 

5.  Scepticism.  —  And  so  we  have  reasoned  ourselves  into 
a  frame  of  mind  where  the  solid  fabric  of  the  world  dis- 
solves like  a  dream  before  our  eyes,  or  passes  into  a 
kaleidoscopic  unreality  of  change.  But  can  we  really 
accept  this  result?  Is  it  possible  honestly  to  believe  it? 
No ;  Hume  admits  that  no  one  will  be  permanently  con- 
vinced. As  long  as  our  attention  is  bent  upon  the  subject, 
the  philosophical  and  studied  principle  may  prevail;  but 
the  moment  we  relax  our  thoughts,  nature  will  display  her- 
self, and  draw  us  back  to  our  former  belief  in  the  reality  of 
permanent  and  identical  things.  And  yet  if  our  reason 
tells  us  that  actually  the  contrary  opinion  is  true,  must  we 
not  of  necessity  follow  its  leading  ?  But  what  is  belief  ? 
Nothing,  once  more,  but  the  liveliness  and  force  with  which 
an  idea  strikes  us.  Reason,  then,  furnishes  no  assured  test ; 
indeed,  reason  has  peculiar  disadvantages  of  its  own.  The 
moment  we  have  set  to  work  to  reason,  then  a  doubt  as  to 
the  validity  of  our  reasoning  is  possible,  nay,  is  forced  upon 
us.  This  we  must  justify  by  a  new  argument ;  and  this, 
again,  by  another ;  and  all  the  time  we  are  getting  farther 
and  farther  away  from  those  clear  and  immediate  impres- 
sions, on  which  the  possibility  of  belief  depends,  until  at 
last  there  remains  nothing  of  the  original  probability,  how- 
ever great  we  may  suppose  it  to  have  been,  and  however 
small  the  diminution  by  every  new  uncertainty.  Our  im- 
mediate and  instinctive  beliefs  yield  to  our  reason,  which 
for  the  moment  carries  with  it  the  greater  vividness.  But 
the  more  refined  and  intricate  it  becomes,  the  less  this 
vividness  of  belief  can  belong  to  it ;  and  the  moment  the 
mind  relaxes,  we  swing  back  to  our  natural  opinions.  The 
mind  is  in  a  strait  'twixt  the  two ;  now  one  is  uppermost, 
and  now  the  other. 

Is,  then,  absolute  scepticism  the  final  word  of  philosophy  ? 
Are  we  to  refuse  to  believe  at  all,  by  reason  of  the  dilemma 
in  which  we  find  ourselves  ?  "  Should  it  here  be  asked  me, 


382        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

whether  I  sincerely  assent  to  the  argument  which  I  seem 
to  take  such  pains  to  inculcate,  and  whether  I  be  really 
one  of  those  sceptics  who  hold  that  all  is  uncertain,  and 
that  our  judgment  is  not  in  any  thing  possessed  of  any 
measure  of  truth  and  falsehood,  I  should  reply,  that  this 
question  is  entirely  superfluous,  and  that  neither  I  nor  any 
other  person  was  ever  sincerely  and  constantly  of  that 
opinion.  Nature,  by  an  absolute  and  uncontrollable  neces- 
sity, has  determined  us  to  judge  as  well  as  to  breathe  and 
feel.  Whoever  has  taken  the  pains  to  refute  the  cavils  of 
this  total  scepticism,  has  really  disputed  without  an  antago- 
nist, and  endeavored  by  arguments  to  establish  a  faculty 
which  nature  has  antecedently  implanted  in  the  mind,  and 
rendered  unavoidable.  My  intention,  then,  in  displaying 
so  carefully  the  arguments  of  that  fantastic  sect,  is  only  to 
make  the  reader  sensible  of  the  truth  of  my  hypothesis, 
that  all  our  reasonings  concerning  causes  and  effects  are 
derived  from  nothing  but  custom  ;  and  that  belief  is  more 
properly  an  act  of  the  sensitive,  than  of  the  cogitative  part 
of  our  natures."  J 

The  result  of  Hume's  inquiry  is,  therefore,  not  to  de- 
stroy belief,  —  that  is  an  impossibility, — but  to  do  away 
with  the  false  assumption  of  its  certain  and  demonstrable 
character.  We  believe,  not  because  we  can  prove  our 
opinions,  but  because  we  cannot  help  believing.  If  we  are 
of  the  opinion  that  "  fire  warms  or  water  refreshes,  'tis  only 
because  it  costs  us  too  much  pains  to  think  otherwise." 
Our  belief  is  due  to  custom  and  instinct,  not  to  reason. 
Accordingly,  we  can  never  guard  ourselves  against  the 
assaults  of  scepticism.  "  This  sceptical  doubt,  both  with 
respect  to  reason  and  the  senses,  is  a  malady  which  can 
never  be  radically  cured,  but  must  return  upon  us  any 
moment,  however  we  may  chase  it  away,  and  sometimes 
may  seem  entirely  free  from  it.  'Tis  impossible  upon  any 
system  to  defend  either  our  understanding  or  our  senses, 
and  we  but  expose  them  farther  when  we  endeavor  to 

iBk.I,  Pt.  IV,  I  (p.  183). 


The  Growth  of  Empiricism  383 

justify  them  in  that  manner.  As  the  sceptical  doubt 
arises  naturally  from  a  profound  and  intense  reflection  on 
those  subjects,  it  always  increases  the  farther  we  carry 
our  reflections,  whether  in  opposition  or  in  conformity  to 
it.  Carelessness  and  inattention  alone  can  afford  us  any 
remedy.  For  this  reason  I  rely  entirely  upon  them ;  and 
take  it  for  granted,  whatever  may  be  the  reader's  opinion 
at  this  moment,  that  an  hour  hence  he  will  be  persuaded 
there  is  both  an  external  and  an  internal  world."  1 

"  I  am  first  affrighted  and  confounded  with  that  forlorn 
solitude  in  which  I  am  placed  by  my  philosophy.  When 
I  look  abroad,  I  foresee  on  every  side  dispute,  contra- 
diction, anger,  calumny,  and  detraction.  When  I  turn 
my  eye  inward,  I  find  nothing  but  doubt  and  ignorance. 
All  the  world  conspires  to  oppose  and  contradict  me ; 
though  such  is  my  weakness,  that  I  feel  all  my  opinions 
loosen  and  fall  of  themselves,  when  unsupported  by  the 
approbation  of  others.  Every  step  I  take  is  with  hesita- 
tion, and  every  new  reflection  makes  me  dread  an  error 
and  absurdity  in  my  reasoning." 

"  After  the  most  accurate  and  exact  of  my  reasonings, 
I  can  give  no  reason  why  I  should  assent  to  it,  and  feel 
nothing  but  a  strong  propensity  to  consider  objects  strongly 
in  that  view,  under  which  they  appear  to  me.  The  mem- 
ory, senses,  and  understanding  are  all  of  them  founded 
on  the  imagination,  or  the  vivacity  of  our  ideas.  Yet  if 
we  assent  to  every  trivial  suggestion  of  the  fancy,  beside 
that  these  suggestions  are  often  contrary  to  each  other, 
they  lead  us  into  such  errors,  absurdities,  and  obscurities, 
that  we  must  at  last  become  ashamed  of  our  credulity." 

"  But,  on  the  other  hand,  if  the  consideration  of  these 
instances  make  us  take  a  resolution  to  reject  all  the  trivial 
suggestions  of  the  fancy,  and  adhere  to  the  understanding, 
that  is,  to  the  general  and  more  established  properties  of 
the  imagination ;  even  this  resolution,  if  steadily  executed, 
would  be  dangerous,  and  attended  with  the  most  fatal 
1  Bk.  I,  Pt.  IV,  2  (p.  218). 


384        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

consequences.  For  I  have  already  shown  that  the  under- 
standing, when  it  acts  alone  and  according  to  its  most 
general  principles,  entirely  subverts  itself,  and  leaves  not 
the  lowest  degree  of  evidence  in  any  proposition  either 
in  philosophy  or  common  life." 

"  Most  fortunately  it  happens  that,  since  reason  is  in- 
capable of  dispelling  these  clouds,  nature  herself  suffices 
to  that  purpose,  and  cures  me  of  this  philosophical  melan- 
choly and  delirium,  either  by  relaxing  this  bent  of  mind, 
or  by  some  avocation  and  lively  impression  of  my  senses 
which  obliterate  all  these  chimeras.  I  dine,  I  play  a  game 
of  backgammon,  I  converse,  and  am  merry  with  my 
friends ;  and  when,  after  three  or  four  hours'  amusement, 
I  return  to  these  speculations,  they  appear  so  cold,  and 
strained,  and  ridiculous,  that  I  cannot  find  in  my  heart  to 
enter  into  them  any  farther."  1 

6.  The  Opponents  of  Hume.  —  The  thoroughgoing  na- 
ture of  Hume's  conclusions  was  itself  the  promise  of  a  new 
epoch.  So  long  as  the  impulse  to  knowledge  exists  in 
man,  he  cannot  rest  content  with  such  an  outcome.  Nor 
can  society  be  satisfied  with  so  insecure  a  basis.  Religious, 
political,  and  moral  faiths  already  seemed  for  educated  men 
to  be  endangered  by  the  hostile  criticism  of  the  Rational- 
ists ;  nevertheless,  there  was  still  present,  to  steady  men,  a 
confidence  in  the  power  of  reason  to  reach  grounded  truth 
—  a  confidence  which  received  its  most  powerful  support 
from  the  notable  success  of  science.  But  if  that  same  em- 
pirical study  of  facts,  on  which  men  prided  themselves, 
really  carried  with  it  the  logical  conclusions  which  Hume 
maintained,  then  reason  itself  was  no  longer  to  be  depended 
on.  And  with  reason,  science  too  must  fall,  all  its  certainty 
and  necessity  vanish,  and  man's  knowledge  reduce  itself  to 
a  mere  expectation  that  things  will  happen  as  they  have 
been  wont  to  happen  in  the  past,  with  no  surer  ground  for 
it  than  the  bare  fact  that  we  are  accustomed  so  to  believe. 

1  Bk.  I,  Pt.  IV,  7  (a  condensed  quotation,  taken  from  Aikins'  Philosophy  of 
Hume). 


The  Growth  of  Empiricism  385 

The  attempt  to  go  back  of  Hume's  premises,  and  to 
correct  the  presuppositions  which  led  to  his  sceptical  con- 
clusions, was  made  independently  by  two  philosophers. 
The  first  was  the  Scotchman  Reid,  who  found  the  root  of 
the  trouble  in  the  "new  way  of  ideas" —  the  supposition, 
namely,  that  it  is  only  with  our  own  ideas  that  we  come  in 
contact.  Instead  of  being,  as  Hume  maintained,  shut  up 
to  the  knowledge  of  our  own  sensations,  Reid  took  his 
stand  on  what  he  held  to  be  the  belief  of  common  sense, 
that  we  have  an  immediate  intuition  of  external  reality  as 
such.  And  we  have  a  similar  intuition  of  several  universal 
truths,  such  as  the  principle  of  causation,  which  are  not 
themselves  mere  ideas,  but  the  original  constitution  of  our 
minds,  and  by  which  our  empirical  experience  can  be  regu- 
lated and  judged.  Reid  was  the  founder  of  a  consider- 
able school — the  so-called  Scottish  school — which  has  had 
a  strong  influence  on  English  thought,  and  which  is  repre- 
sented by  such  men  as  Dugald  Stewart  and  Sir  William 
Hamilton.  But  Reid's  merits  have  almost  been  lost  sight 
of,  in  the  fame  of  one  who  attempted  what  was  essentially 
the  same  problem,  but  with  greater  insight  and  depth. 
This  was  the  German  philosopher,  Kant.  It  was  Hume 
who  helped  set  Kant  on  the  track  of  a  conception,  which 
was  to  revolutionize  philosophy.  First,  however,  it  will  be 
necessary  to  speak  briefly  of  certain  other  aspects  of  the 
period  just  considered,  and  to  note  the  beginnings  of  a 
new  influence,  which  also  was  to  find  philosophical  ex- 
pression in  Kant. 

LITERATURE 

Hume,  Chief  Works:  Treatise  of  Human  Nature  (1739-1740)  ;  Es- 
says (1741-1742)  ;  Inquiry  concerning  Human  Understanding  (1748)  ; 
Inquiry  concerning  Principles  of  Morals  (1751) ;  Natural  History  of 
Religion  (1757);  Dialogues  concerning  Natural  Religion  (1779). 

Aikms,  Selections. 

Huxley,  Hume. 

Knight,  Hume. 

Green,  Introduction  to  Hume. 

2C 


386        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

McCosh,  Scottish  Philosophy. 

Seth,  Scottish  Philosophy. 

Hyslop,  Hume's  Ethics. 

Fraser,  Thomas  Reid. 

Orr,  David  Hume  and  his  Influence  in  Philosophy  and  Theology. 

Elkin,  Hume. 

Calderwood,  David  Hume. 

Laurie,  Scottish  Philosophy  in  its  National  Development. 

§34.   The  Enlightenment.  Deism.  The  Ethical  Development 

i.  The  Spirit  of  the  Enlightenment. — In  considering 
the  course  of  philosophical  development  from  Descartes  to 
Hume,  we  have  thus  far  been  concerned  chiefly  with  its  more 
technical  and  theoretical  side.  But  there  is  another  aspect 
of  it  also,  which  it  is  of  great  importance  to  understand. 
This  has  to  do  with  the  manner  in  which,  along  with  other 
influences,  it  affected  the  general  life  and  culture  of  the 
times,  so  as  to  give  to  this  a  distinct  and  peculiar  character. 
The  result  is  what  is  known  as  the  period  of  the  Enlighten- 
ment ;  and  this  may  now  be  considered  briefly. 

The  Renaissance  had  been  the  product  of  a  great  wave 
of  enthusiasm,  which  for  the  time  had  carried  everything 
before  it.  To  the  fresh  forces  which  had  been  suddenly 
revealed  in  man,  nothing  seemed  impossible.  Cold  caution, 
a  sober  criticism  of  the  mind  and  its  powers,  an  under- 
standing of  the  historical  conditions  in  which  the  new 
movements  had  their  root,  were  felt  to  be  unnecessary  in 
the  flush  of  victorious  anticipation. 

But  as  the  impetus  slackened,  a  different  attitude  began 
to  grow  up.  The  force  of  inspiration  spent  itself,  and  the 
inevitable  disillusionment  followed.  As  the  dreams  of  an 
Eldorado,  and  of  unlimited  gold,  which  had  inspired  the  early 
voyages  of  discovery,  gave  place  to  the  hardships  of  a  new 
land  to  be  conquered  and  settled,  so  the  confident  faith  in 
the  new  spiritual  powers  that  were  to  lay  open  the  secrets 
of  the  universe,  grew  more  dim  as  time  advanced.  Meta- 
physical interests  began  to  lose  their  attraction.  Men  in 
general  were  not  ready  indeed  to  accept  the  Pyrrhonism  of 


The  Growth  of  Empiricism  387 

such  thinkers  as  Montaigne  and  Pascal ;  but  the  sceptical 
spirit,  nevertheless,  was  beginning  to  tell.  Perhaps,  after 
all,  man  was  not  made  to  know  the  ultimate  truth  of  the 
universe.  Certainly  his  attempts  so  far  had  not  met  with 
the  success  that  had  been  hoped.  Meanwhile  there  were 
things  close  at  hand  which  he  might  know.  Let  him  turn 
from  transcendental  inquiries,  and  busy  himself  with  hu- 
man interests  which  alone  are  really  vital;  the  proper 
study  of  mankind  is  man.  And  he  will  find  plenty  here 
that  is  urgently  demanding  his  attention. 

Along  with  the  spiritual  revolution  that  had  come  about, 
there  had  been  inevitable  changes  in  the  structure  of 
society  as  well.  But  these  changes  had  been  rather 
unconscious  than  premeditated ;  and  in  many  cases  the 
institutions,  ecclesiastical  and  feudal,  of  Medievalism,  still 
persisted  in  one  form  or  another  under  these  changed  con- 
ditions, and  weighed  heavily  upon  the  new  ideals  and  ambi- 
tions. Moreover,  the  old  beliefs  for  which  the  Church 
stood — beliefs  which  the  thinkers  of  the  Renaissance  had 
almost  contemptuously  discarded  —  were  by  no  means 
dead ;  and  now  as  the  force  of  the  new  movement  was 
spent,  they  again  came  to  the  front  and  allied  themselves 
with  the  reactionary  tendencies  in  the  social  and  political 
world,  to  oppose  any  further  change.  Even  the  Renais- 
sance itself  added  something  to  the  problem.  Just  as 
chivalry  degenerated  into  the  caricature  of  itself  which 
Cervantes  ridiculed,  so  the  enthusiasm  of  the  Renaissance 
died  away,  only  to  leave  behind  its  extravagances  and  ex- 
crescences ;  and  these  bubbles  required  also  to  be  pricked. 

The  result  was  the  period  of  the  Enlightenment,  which 
belongs  especially  to  the  eighteenth  century.  The  most 
obvious  features  of  the  Enlightenment  are  its  practical  and 
unimaginative  character,  its  hatred  of  vague  enthusiasms, 
and  misty  ideals  and  ideas,  its  determination  to  apply  the 
test  of  a  severely  accurate  reason  to  everything,  and  reject 
outright  whatever  will  not  stand  the  test,  and  the  constant 
reference  in  all  this,  as  the  court  of  final  appeal,  to  the  one 


388        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

undoubted  fact  —  the  individual  himself,  with  his  rights, 
and  his  rational  powers  of  understanding.  The  result  is  a 
type  of  thought  which  does  not  enlist  our  sympathies  very 
strongly,  but  which,  nevertheless,  had  a  most  valuable 
work  to  do.  Let  us  consider  once  more  the  situation  which 
it  had  to  meet.  After  the  long  period  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
man  had  once  more  become  conscious  of  himself ;  had 
recognized  by  the  sudden  bloom  within  him  of  unexpected 
powers,  that  he  was  not  merely  a  member  of  society  or 
of  the  Church,  not  merely  one  to  take  orders  from  some 
higher  power,  whether  man  or  God,  but  a  free  spirit,  who 
could  sit  in  judgment  upon  whatever  was  offered  to  him  for 
his  acceptance,  and  could  demand  that  the  world  satisfy 
his  cravings  for  fulness  of  life.  But  the  grip  of  vested 
interests  was  too  strong  to  be  broken  all  at  once.  A  long 
period  of  conflict  had  to  intervene  before  the  individual 
could  be  completely  liberated,  set  off  by  himself,  and  recog- 
nized with  a  distinctness  which  should  secure  for  him  his 
rights  through  all  the  future. 

And  this  process  was  necessarily  critical  and  negative. 
First  it  must  be  shown  what  man  is  not.  He  must  be 
stripped  of  restraints  which  hold  him  in.  He  must  be  set 
up  over  against  society,  and  religion,  and  even  moral  law, 
as  having  a  nature  not  to  be  coerced  by  these  things.  He 
must  revolt  against  conventions  which  his  inner  life  does 
not  realize,  and  prove  his  freedom  by  testing  all  things, 
human  and  divine.  This  work  was  done  by  the  Enlighten- 
ment, and  done  so  thoroughly,  that  the  conception  of  the 
individual  which  it  worked  out  is  the  dominant  conception 
even  to  the  present  day.  The  result  was  one-sided.  It 
gave  the  individual  his  rights,  indeed,  but  in  trying  to 
make  him  independent  of  all  that  concrete  environment 
which  institutions  represent,  it  also  emptied  his  life  of  real 
content.  But  nevertheless,  it  represented  a  work  that  had 
to  be  done  before  progress  could  be  made.  It  was  the 
task  of  the  succeeding  period  —  a  period  not  yet  completed 
—  to  remedy  this  one-sidedness  and  abstractness,  with- 


The  Growth  of  Empiricism  389 

out  losing  the  positive  advantage  that  the  Enlightenment 
had  won. 

The  method  of  the  Enlightenment,  therefore,  was  pri- 
marily the  critical  intellect  —  severe,  dispassionate,  destruc- 
tive, with  little  of  light  and  warmth  in  it  Any  sympathy 
with  the  views  they  were  tearing  to  pieces,  and  appreci- 
ation of  their  relative  truth  —  anything  of  what  we  now 
call  the  historical  sense  —  was  in  the  thinkers  of  the 
Enlightenment  almost  wholly  lacking.  It  is  not  very 
strange,  indeed,  that  this  was  so.  They  were  fighting  that 
which  had  all  the  weight  of  authority  on  its  own  side,  and 
which  was  far  from  being  disposed  itself  to  be  conciliatory. 
Nor,  perhaps,  could  there  have  been  a  better  weapon 
against  the  great  mass  of  unreasoning  traditional  beliefs, 
than  just  the  unsympathetic  logical  intellect,  tinged  with 
ridicule,  and  appealing  to  those  hard  facts  which  common 
sense  can  appreciate  without  difficulty,  and  which  have  an 
obvious  bearing  on  the  more  solid  and  practical  interests  of 
human  life.  We  may  be  inclined  now  to  find  fault  with  the 
contemptuous  rejection  of  the  enthusiasms  and  deeper  intu- 
itions which  cannot  be  compressed  into  a  clear  cut  formula 
—  all  the  feeling  side  of  life.  But  the  Enlighteners  had  a 
justification  in  their  attitude.  If  any  one  can  be  allowed 
to  fall  back  upon  feeling,  that  is  the  end  of  all  argument. 
What  we  need  is  clear  ideas,  facts  that  can  be  grasped 
and  defined.  Feeling  confuses  thought ;  and,  furthermore, 
it  tends  first  of  all  to  gather  around  those  things  to  which 
we  have  been  used  by  custom,  and  so  forms  the  mainstay 
of  all  that  opposition  to  progress  which  it  was  the  function 
of  reason  to  demolish. 

The  necessary  consequence  was,  however,  that  the 
thought  of  the  Enlightenment  was  superficial,  lacking 
insight  and  atmosphere,  blind  to  the  deeper  elements  of 
the  human  spirit.  Sundering  himself  as  he  did  from  the 
life  of  the  race,  and  the  historical  background  which  had 
shaped  his  own  opinions  as  truly  as  those  he  was  criticis- 
ing, judging  everything  without  reference  to  its  setting,  and 


3QO        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

by  the  sole  test  of  an  abstract  logic,  it  is  not  strange  that 
the  man  of  the  Enlightenment  should  often  have  shown 
a  very  unenlightened  attitude  toward  beliefs  which  did  not 
fit  into  his  logical  scheme,  and  so  seemed  to  him  vague 
and  worthless,  but  which  in  reality  were  far  truer,  in  the 
highest  sense,  than  anything  to  which  his  own  insight 
reached.  The  type  has  its  classical  expression  in  English 
literature  in  Pope,  and  the  Essay  on  Man. 

The  characteristic  features  of  the  Enlightenment  took 
their  rise  in  England,  where  the  greater  peace  and  security 
allowed  an  attention  to  disinterested  inquiry  earlier  than 
on  the  continent.  From  England  it  influenced  the  France 
of  Voltaire  and  the  Encyclopedists,  where  it  attained  a 
peculiarly  distinct  and  brilliant  development.  In  Germany, 
the  influence  of  Leibniz  continued  to  be  dominant,  but 
Leibniz  as  systematized  by  Wolff,  in  a  highly  rationalistic 
system,  from  which  the  most  valuable  elements  were  lost. 
It  was  from  this  school  that  Kant,  the  philosopher  of  the 
new  era,  was  to  spring.  A  brief  account  of  a  movement 
so  widespread  will  necessarily  have  to  be  very  sketchy  and 
inadequate. 

2.  The  Deistic  Movement. —  In  England,  it  will  be 
enough,  in  addition  to  what  has  already  been  said  in  con- 
nection with  Locke,  to  notice  two  movements  —  the  growth 
of  Deism,  and  the  development  of  ethical  theory.  Deism 
was  an  attempt  to  get  rid  of  the  supposed  irrational  ele- 
ments of  Christianity.  It  begins  with  a  desire  to  explain 
away  the  mysteries  of  Church  dogma,  and  to  show  that 
between  revelation  and  reason  there  is  no  contradiction. 
Thus,  in  Locke,  it  calls  men  back  from  theology  to  the 
simplicity  and  reasonableness  of  the  New  Testament, 
whose  one  essential  article  of  faith  is  the  Messiahship  of 
Christ.  Revelation  is  not  for  the  purpose  of  adding  any 
mysteries  of  faith,  but  serves  only  as  a  practical  means  of 
convincing  men  through  its  miracles. 

But  soon  the  emphasis  on  the  reasonableness  of  revela- 
tion passed  into  the  feeling  that,  if  reason  alone  is  compe- 


The  Growth  of  Empiricism  391 

tent  to  reach  God,  revelation  is  superfluous.  Accordingly, 
the  attempt  to  rationalize  the  Bible  narratives  and  doctrines, 
gave  place  to  the  much  simpler  attitude  of  open  hostility, 
which  admitted  their  irrationality,  and  made  the  most  of 
it.  Over  against  revealed  religion,  therefore,  was  placed 
the  Deistic  creed  of  so-called  Natural  Religion.  This  nat- 
ural religion  showed  all  the  limitations  of  the  rationalistic 
temper,  and  practically  resulted  in  removing  God  as  far  as 
possible  from  the  world,  and  the  immediate  life  of  men. 
It  had  little  content  beyond  the  belief  in  a  God  who  made 
the  universe,  and  set  it  in  motion,  and  who  has  laid  down 
certain  laws  of  conduct  for  men  in  the  moral  law.  Positive 
religions  are  only  corruptions  of  this  natural  and  rational 
religious  creed.  Of  course  this  precluded  any  sympathetic 
appreciation  of  their  historical  meaning,  or  of  a  possible 
truth  underlying  their  imperfect  statements  of  doctrine. 
They  are  due  solely  to  the  selfish  cunning  of  priests  and 
rulers,  and  are,  accordingly,  to  be  attacked  with  every 
weapon  at  command. 

Among  the  more  important  Deists  are  Toland,  Collins, 
Tindal,  Chubb,  and  Morgan.  On  the  whole,  Deism  had 
but  little  success  in  maintaining  itself  against  the  cham- 
pions of  revelation.  It  represented,  indeed,  a  position  of 
unstable  equilibrium.  As  it  opposed  the  Biblical  account 
of  God's  dealings  with  the  world,  chiefly  on  the  ground  of 
its  inconsistency  with  His  goodness  and  justice,  it  was  com- 
pelled to  assume  that  the  same  criticism  did  not  apply 
to  the  workings  of  nature,  in  which  alone  it  could  look 
for  God.  This  found  expression  in  the  shallow  optimism 
of  the  period,  and  the  dictum  that  whatever  is,  is  right. 
Accordingly,  the  opponents  of  Deism  found  little  difficulty 
in  showing  that  the  objections  it  brought  against  the  God 
of  revelation  could  be  turned  with  equal  effect  against 
its  own  God  of  nature  —  a  line  of  argument  which  was 
worked  out  most  effectively  in  Bishop  Butler's  famous 
Analogy  of  Religion. 

3.   The  Development  of  Ethical  Theory.  —  The  effect  of 


392        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

the  Deistic  movement  was  to  reduce  religion  essentially 
to  a  life  of  moral  conduct.  Indeed,  in  the  unimaginative 
temper  of  the  age,  which  was  in  most  cases  quite  incapable 
of  entering  into  the  deeper  aspects  of  religious  experience, 
this  was  where  practically  the  emphasis  was  laid,  even  by 
those  theologians  who  stood  as  opponents  of  Deism.  But 
now  from  this  emphasis  an  important  consequence  arose. 
The  attempt  to  find  for  morality  a  foundation  independent 
of  theology,  brought  about  the  first  development  of  ethical 
theory  on  a  large  scale  in  modern  times.  To  the  chief 
phases  of  this  we  may  turn  briefly. 

The  starting-point  of  English  ethics  is  Hobbes,  and  his 
selfish  theory  of  human  nature.  This  naturally  called  forth 
strong  opposition,  and  nearly  all  the  succeeding  moralists 
have  Hobbes  more  or  less  directly  in  view.  Among  the 
earlier  theorists,  the  most  important  is  Richard  Cumberland. 
Cumberland  denies  that  man  is  wholly  selfish,  and  adds  to 
the  egoistic  motives  of  Hobbes,  social  and  benevolent  af- 
fections also,  which  are  equally  original.  Man  is  thus 
social  in  his  nature,  and  finds  a  direct  satisfaction  in  doing 
good  to  others,  apart  from  the  indirect  benefits  he  may 
hope  to  gain.  Moreover,  there  is  a  necessary  connection 
between  individual  and  social  welfare,  which  makes  it  im- 
possible to  secure  individual  happiness,  except  by  subor- 
dinating oneself  to  the  good  of  mankind.  This  connection 
is  decreed  by  God,  who  thus  supplies  the  ultimate  ground 
for  the  obligation  to  perfofm  those  benevolent  acts  which 
the  welfare  of  mankind  demands,  and  in  which  morality 
consists. 

Other  attempts  to  give  to  ethics  a  foundation  which 
should  not  seem  to  destroy  its  rational  justification,  are 
represented  by  Cudworth,  Clarke  and  Wollaston,  and 
Shaftesbury.  Ralph  Cudworth  —  a  Platonist  —  had  re- 
course to  innate  ideas  of  reason.  Samuel  Clarke,  again, 
attempted  to  find  a  criterion  in  the  notion  of  conformity  to 
the  fitness  or  harmony  of  things  —  a  relation  which,  like 
mathematics,  is  capable  of  being  known  as  self-evident, 


The  Growth  of  Empiricism  393 

and  which  is  even  independent  of  the  will  of  God.  With 
William  Wollaston,  who  was  influenced  by  Clarke,  this 
takes  the  form  that  a  wrong  act  is  ultimately  a  false  judg- 
ment, or  a  lie.  A  rational  being  should  act  in  accordance 
with  the  true  relations  of  things ;  and  it  is  because  his  act 
implicitly  denies  this  truth,  that  it  is  wrong.  Thus  the 
murderer  acts  as  though  he  were  able  to  restore  life  to  his 
victim ;  the  man  who  is  cruel  to  animals  declares  by  his  act 
that  the  creature  is  a  being  devoid  of  feeling. 

More  important  than  any  of  the  preceding  names,  is  that 
of  Shaftesbury.  Shaftesbury's  conception  of  the  ethical 
end  is  the  full  expression  of  human  life,  the  complete  car- 
rying out  of  its  potentialities  into  the  flower  of  a  beautiful 
personality.  In  opposition  to  Hobbes,  these  potentialities 
involve  unselfish,  social  tendencies,  as  well  as  those  that 
are  purely  self-seeking.  But  morality  does  not  have  to  do 
simply  with  the  former,  as  Cumberland  had  thought.  It 
is  found  rather  in  the  harmonious  interaction  of  the  two, 
by  which  each  is  given  its  rights ;  and  it  is  assumed  that 
there  can  be  no  ultimate  conflict.  Another  significant  side 
of  Shaftesbury's  thought  is  his  conception  of  the  source 
of  our  ethical  judgments.  This  he  finds  in  an  instinctive 
good  taste  in  ethical  matters,  which  the  man  of  refinement 
possesses,  and  which  is  entirely  analogous  to  aesthetic 
taste.  The  source  of  moral  judgments  thus  goes  back,  not 
to  reason,  but  to  feeling.  Shaftesbury  has  a  disciple  in 
Francis  Hutcheson,  who  emphasizes  this  conception  of  a 
moral  sense,  which  he  conceives  as  an  innate  faculty  of 
ethical  judgment  common  to  all  men.  The  same  general 
tendency  appears  in  Bishop  Butler's  conception  of  con- 
science as  the  voice  of  God  in  human  life. 

Meanwhile,  another  tendency  connects  itself  more  di- 
rectly with  Hobbes.  This  went  back  to  the  common-sense 
view  of  pleasure  as  the  end  which  man  seeks.  Morality, 
then,  can  only  come  in  as  this  self-seeking  is  subjected  to 
some  law,  either  the  law  of  the  state,  or,  going  beyond 
this,  a  law  imposed  by  God.  In  either  case,  however,  this 


394        A  Students  History  of  Philosophy 

looks  in  the  direction  of  making  morality  essentially  a 
social  matter,  and  so  of  setting  up  the  happiness  of  society 
as  the  criterion  of  the  moral  act.  This  tendency  at  last 
succeeded  in  working  itself  out  clearly  in  the  Utilitarian- 
ism of  Jeremy  Bentham,  who  made  the  phrase  "the  greatest 
happiness  of  the  greatest  number"  the  watchword  of  later 
English  ethics.  A  further  question  must  arise,  however, 
in  regard  to  the  motive  which  is  to  lead  the  individual  to 
adopt  this  standard,  and  act  for  the  common  good.  In 
Locke's  case,  as  will  be  remembered,  this  is  found  ultk 
mately  in  the  individual's  own  self-interest.  God  has 
attached  certain  penalties,  here  and  hereafter,  to  the  vio- 
lation of  his  laws,  which  make  the  life  of  virtue  the  only 
way  of  procuring  happiness  in  the  long  run.  This  receives 
a  bald  statement  in  Paley's  famous  definition  of  virtue  : 
virtue  consists  in  seeking  "  the  happiness  of  mankind,  in 
obedience  to  the  will  of  God,  and  for  the  sake  of  everlast- 
ing happiness."  A  more  careful  psychological  analysis,  in 
Hume  and  Adam  Smith,  attempted  to  show  the  impossibil- 
ity of  reducing  all  motives  to  interested  self-seeking,  and 
brought  the  feeling  of  sympathy  to  the  front  as  the  real 
spring  of  altruistic  action. 

LITERATURE 

Berkeley,  Alciphron. 

Stephen,  English  Thought  in  the  Eighteenth  Century. 
Cairns,  Unbelief  in  the  Eighteenth  Century. 
Locke,  The  Reasonableness  of  Christianity. 
Butler,  Analogy  of  Religion,  Sermons  on  Human  Nature. 
Collins,  Butler. 

Selby-Bigge,  British  Moralists. 

Shaftesbury,  Characteristics  of  Men,  Manners,  Opinions,  Times. 
Fowler,  Shaftesbury  and  Hutcheson. 

Mackintosh,  On  the  Progress  of  Ethical  Philosophy  during  the  Seven- 
teenth and  Eighteenth  Centuries. 

Patten,  Development  of  English  Thought. 
Albee,  History  of  English  Utilitarianism. 


The  Growth  of  Empiricism  395 

§  35.  The  French  Enlightenment.  Voltaire  and  the  Ency- 
clopedists. The  Materialists.  Rousseau.  Lessing  and 
Herder 

I.  The  French  Enlightenment.  —  The  results  of  the  Eng- 
lish Enlightenment  were  introduced  into  France  by  Voltaire, 
who  had  been  influenced  by  Locke  during  a  sojourn  in 
England.  This  influence  took  root  in  a  brilliant  circle  of 
Frenchmen,  who,  from  their  connection  with  the  new 
Encylopedia,  which  was  to  embody  the  knowledge  that 
mankind  had  so  far  attained,  were  known  as  the  Encylo- 
pedists.  Connected  more  or  less  closely  with  this  enter- 
prise, were  such  men  as  Diderot,  d'Alembert,  Voltaire, 
Holbach,  Turgot,  Montesquieu,  Helvetius,  and  others.  In 
addition  to  some  positive  scientific  achievements,  the  French 
Enlightenment  directed  its  weapons,  as  in  England,  against 
the  popular  religious  beliefs  which  seemed  to  it  to  be  irra- 
tional and  harmful.  But  by  reason  of  conditions  in 
France,  the  strife  took  on  here  a  far  sharper  and  more 
virulent  tone.  The  Deistic  controversy  which  in  free 
England  was  largely  a  matter  of  scholastic  discussion, 
was  in  France  a  real  battle  against  forces  of  obscurant- 
ism and  oppression  which  were  very  much  in  evidence. 
Mediaeval  institutions,  both  of  Church  and  State,  still  main- 
tained themselves,  and  the  result  was  in  both  cases  prac- 
tical abuses  of  the  worst  sort.  Against  the  intolerance  and 
oppression  of  a  corrupt  clergy,  who  used  the  instrument  of 
traditional  belief  as  a  weapon  against  all  efforts  at  reform, 
Voltaire  and  the  Encyclopedists  stood  out  as  the  deadliest 
foes.  They  set  themselves,  with  every  resource  of  scien- 
tific knowledge,  clear  reasoning,  and  biting  wit,  to  discredit 
the  foundation  on  which  the  influence  of  their  opponents 
rested.  It  is  this  unceasing  and  fearless  hatred  of  injus- 
tice, which  gives  to  the  figure  of  Voltaire  heroic  pro- 
portions, in  spite  of  all  his  intellectual  limitations,  and 
personal  faults. 

This  practical  aim,  also,  determined  to  a  considerable 


396        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

extent  the  course  which  the  French  Enlightenment  was 
to  take,  in  opposition  to  the  scepticism  which  had  been 
the  outcome  of  English  thought  in  Hume.  As  a  weapon 
against  a  real  and  dangerous  foe,  Hume's  results  were  too 
fine  spun,  too  far  from  common  sense,  too  impractical,  to 
appeal  to  the  French  reformers.  In  distinction  from  the 
Idealism  of  England,  the  more  significant  side  of  the  French 
Enlightenment  tended,  in  the  fight  against  tradition,  to  a 
thoroughgoing  and  consistent  scientific  view  of  the  world 
—  that  is,  to  Materialism  —  without  bothering  itself  very 
much  about  the  theoretical  difficulties  of  this  view.  In  the 
beginning,  indeed,  the  Enlightenment  was  Deistic.  It  still 
held  to  natural  religion,  and  the  somewhat  vague  and  con- 
tentless  God  who  stands  as  the  original  source  of  the  world. 
But  such  remnants  of  a  religious  faith  were  not  very  deep- 
seated,  and  they  quickly  tended  to  disappear  altogether 
as  naturalism  and  sensationalism  were  carried  out  to  their 
logical  results.  Lamettrie,  in  his  L'Homme  Machine,  re- 
duces man,  as  Descartes  had  reduced  the  animal,  to  a 
mere  automaton  —  a  body  governed  by  purely  physical  and 
necessary  laws.  The  innumerable  facts  which  show  the 
close  dependence  of  the  mind  on  bodily  conditions  were 
insisted  on  with  much  skill  and  impressiveness.  The  con- 
scious life  is  composed  entirely  of  sensations,  which  are 
directly  dependent  on  bodily  processes.  This  sensational- 
ism was  worked  out  theoretically  by  Condillac,  who  sup- 
poses a  statue  endowed  simply  with  the  sense  of  smell, 
and  then  tries  to  show  how  all  the  mental  faculties  can  be 
evolved  out  of  this.  And  while  Condillac  did  not  draw 
the  ultimate  consequences  of  this  sensationalism,  other 
men  stood  ready  to  perform  the  task.  Helvetius,  in  par- 
ticular, carries  the  same  principle  into  the  practical  and 
moral  realm.  The  sole  motive  of  our  acts  is  egoism  and 
self-interest,  and  the  most  exalted  virtues  reduce  them- 
selves to  self-love,  and  a  desire  for  pleasure. 

These  movements  are  summed  up  in  Holbach,  and  the 
System   of  Nature,   where   they   take   a   form   which    is 


The  Growth  of  Empiricism  397 

genuinely  impressive.  Materialism  becomes  a  grim  gos- 
pel—  a  gospel  of  freedom  from  superstition  and  oppres- 
sion. To  Holbach's  almost  fanatical  earnestness,  religion, 
and  the  tyranny  of  rulers,  for  whose  authority  religion  is 
the  great  bulwark,  seem  the  ground  of  all  men's  woes. 
The  God  of  wrath  and  cruelty  for  which  the  Church  too 
often  had  stood,  and  which  had  been  used  to  justify  the 
worst  wrongs,  can  only  be  banished  by  doing  away  with 
God  altogether,  and  substituting  Nature,  with  its  unbend- 
ing laws.  Truth  and  religion  are  unalterably  opposed. 
"  Nature  invites  man  to  love  himself,  incessantly  to  aug- 
ment the  sum  of  his  happiness :  Religion  orders  him  to 
love  only  a  formidable  God  who  is  worthy  of  hatred ;  to 
detest  and  despise  himself,  and  to  sacrifice  to  his  terrible 
idol  the  sweetest  and  most  lawful  pleasures.  Nature  bids 
man  consult  his  reason,  and  take  it  for  his  guide :  Religion 
teaches  him  that  this  reason  is  corrupted,  that  it  is  a  faith- 
less, truthless  guide,  implanted  by  a  treacherous  God  to 
mislead  his  creatures.  Nature  tells  man  to  seek  light,  to 
search  for  the  truth :  Religion  enjoins  upon  him  to  examine 
nothing,  to  remain  in  ignorance.  Nature  says  to  man : 
'  Cherish  glory,  labor  to  win  esteem,  be  active,  courageous, 
industrious ' :  Religion  says  to  him :  '  Be  humble,  abject, 
pusillanimous,  live  in  retreat,  busy  thyself  in  prayer,  medi- 
tation, devout  rites,  be  useless  to  thyself,  and  do  nothing 
for  others.'  Nature  tells  children  to  honor,  to  love,  to 
hearken  to  their  parents,  to  be  the  stay  and  support  of 
their  old  age :  Religion  bids  them  prefer  the  oracle  of 
their  God,  and  to  trample  father  and  mother  under  their 
foot,  when  divine  interests  are  concerned.  Nature  com- 
mands the  perverse  man  to  blush  for  his  vices,  for  his 
shameless  desires,  his  crimes :  Religion  says  to  the  most 
corrupt :  '  Fear  to  kindle  the  wrath  of  a  God  whom  thou 
knowest  not ;  but  if  against  his  laws  thou  hast  committed 
crime,  remember  that  he  is  easy  to  appease  and  of  great 
mercy :  go  to  his  temple,  humble  thyself  at  the  feet  of  his 
ministers,  expiate  thy  misdeeds  by  sacrifices,  offerings, 


398        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

prayers.'  Nature  says  to  man :  '  Thou  art  free,  and  no 
power  on  earth  can  lawfully  strip  thee  of  thy  rights ' : 
Religion  cries  to  him  that  he  is  a  slave  condemned  by 
God  to  groan  under  the  rod  of  God's  representatives.  Let 
us  recognize  the  plain  truth,  that  it  is  these  supernatural 
ideas  that  have  obscured  morality,  corrupted  politics,  hin- 
dered the  advance  of  the  sciences,  and  extinguished  hap- 
piness and  peace  even  in  the  very  heart  of  man."  J 

Let  us  try,  then,  to  banish  the  mists  of  prejudice,  and 
inspire  man  with  courage  and  respect  for  his  reason.  It 
is  only  thus  that  he  can  find  a  remedy  against  the  evils 
into  which  fanaticism  has  plunged  him,  and  throw  off  the 
fetters  by  which  tyrants  and  priests  everywhere  succeed 
in  enchaining  the  nations.  There  is  but  one  truth,  and  it 
can  never  harm  us.  The  '  truth  '  which  is  to  do  away  with 
all  these  evils  is  the  truth  of  science.  "  Let  man  cease 
to  search  outside  the  world  in  which  he  dwells  for  beings 
who  may  procure  him  a  happiness  that  nature  refuses  to 
grant ;  let  him  study  that  nature,  let  him  learn  her  laws, 
let  him  apply  his  discoveries  to  his  own  felicity,  let  him 
undergo  without  a  murmur  the  decrees  of  universal  force." 
Matter  and  motion  alone  exist.  Mind  is  nothing  but  an 
occult  term  that  accounts  for  nothing.  All  things  alike 
are  necessary,  and  subject  to  mechanical  law.  Order, 
purpose,  beauty,  are  merely  subjective.  Man,  instead  of 
being  that  for  whom  all  things  were  created,  is  entirely 
unimportant,  an  insect  of  a  day.  Necessity  rules  in  the 
moral,  as  in  the  physical  world ;  the  particles  of  dust  and 
water  in  a  tempest  or  a  whirlwind  move  by  the  same 
necessity  as  an  individual  in  the  stormy  movements  of  a 
revolution.  There  is  no  difference  between  the  man  who 
throws  himself  out  of  a  window  and  the  man  whom  I  throw 
out,  except  that  the  impulse  acting  in  the  second  comes 
from  without,  the  other  from  within  his  own  mechanism. 

And  back  of  all  this  there  lies  also  another  motive, 
which  already  foreshadows  the  coming  Revolution.  Hith- 

1  Quoted  from  Morley's  Diderot,  p.  370. 


The  Growth  of  Empiricism  399 

erto,  the  emphasis  had  been  upon  the  tyranny  of  super- 
stition ;  now  the  sense  of  social  inequalities  and  injustice, 
and  the  tyranny  of  government,  begins  to  come  more  to 
the  front.  Let  the  great  multitude  of  the  oppressed  shake 
off  the  idle  prejudices  through  which  whole  nations  are 
forced  to  labor,  to  sweat,  to  water  the  earth  with  their 
tears,  merely  to  keep  up  the  luxuries  and  corruption  of  a 
handful  of  insensates,  a  few  useless  creatures ;  let  them 
demand  the  rights  which  Nature  gives  them.  As  govern- 
ment only  derives  its  powers  from  society,  for  whose  sake 
alone  it  exists,  society  may  at  any  time  revoke  these,  if 
it  seems  to  its  advantage  to  do  so.  It  may  change  the 
form  of  government,  extend  or  limit  the  power  intrusted 
to  its  rulers,  over  whom  it  retains  a  supreme  authority,  by 
the  immutable  law  of  nature  that  subordinates  the  part  to 
the  whole. 

2.  Rousseau.  —  Meanwhile  there  had  appeared,  within 
the  circle  of  the  Enlightenment,  a  remarkable  person,  who 
was  destined  to  be  the  forerunner  of  a  new  and  important 
movement.  For  a  time  he  had  cast  in  his  lot  with  the 
Encyclopedists,  and  had  contributed  to  that  enterprise. 
But  the  incompatibility  of  their  standpoint  with  his  own 
soon  became  apparent,  and  he  passed  to  a  bitter  hostility 
toward  the  whole  principle  of  Rationalism. 

This  man  wasfeaujacyues  Rousseau,  a  Swiss  of  French 
descent,  born  in  Geneva  in  1712.  In  his  Confessions 
we  have  a  record  of  his  life  and  character,  given  with  a 
fidelity  and  frankness  which  is  unsurpassed  in  literature. 
In  this  book  the  startling  weaknesses  and  inconsistencies 
of  his  complicated  nature  stand  out  with  remarkable  dis- 
tinctness. To  put  it  in  a  single  word,  Rousseau  was  a 
sentimentalist.  He  was  a  man  with  an  extraordinary 
capacity  for  feeling,  combined  with  a  weakness  of  will  that 
was  abnormal ;  a  father  who  preached  fervidly  the  duty 
of  each  mother  to  suckle  her  own  children,  and  who,  mean- 
time, left  his  own  to  the  tender  mercies  of  a  public  asylum, 
without  even  taking  the  trouble  to  keep  track  of  them; 


400        A  Students  History  of  Philosophy 

a  philanthropist  filled  with  love  for  mankind,  who  yet 
could  not  live  with  any  one  by  reason  of  his  inordinate 
vanities  and  caprices,  and  his  irritable  sensitiveness.  "  He 
has  only  felt,"  says  Hume,  "during  the  whole  course  of 
his  life.  He  is  like  a  man  who  was  stript  not  only  of  his 
clothes,  but  of  his  skin,  and  turned  out  in  that  situation  to 
combat  with  the  rude  and  boisterous  elements."  His 
vagaries  frequently  reached  a  point  little  short  of  madness. 
Nevertheless,  by  his  very  extravagances  he  was  able  to 
make  an  impression  on  the  artificial  age  in  which  he  lived, 
of  which  a  more  balanced  nature  might  have  been  inca- 
pable. He  died  in  1778. 

Before  considering  the  influence  of  Rousseau,  it  may  be 
well  to  stop  a  moment  and  sum  up  the  results  which  the 
Enlightenment  had  accomplished.  And  the  central  fact 
of  the  whole  movement  is  its  Individualism.  We  have 
seen  that  before  man  can  be  in  a  position  to  work  out  his 
own  salvation,  he  must  first  see  himself  as  a  being  inde- 
pendent of  the  ready-made  institutions  into  which  he  finds 
himself  born.  Such  institutions  represent  the  past,  not 
the  future.  If  they  are  not  to  harden  into  fetters  of  the 
spirit,  they  must  constantly  be  adjusting  themselves  to 
new  conditions ;  and  such  a  change  can  come  about,  not 
from  themselves,  or  from  society  as  a  whole,  but  only  from 
the  initiative  of  individual  men.  And  before  man  can  be 
in  this  way  an  intelligent  shaper  of  his  own  destiny,  he 
must  first  recognize  himself,  his  rights  and  powers,  in  inde- 
pendence of  the  more  or  less  arbitrary  environment  that 
surrounds  him. 

The  Enlightenment  brought  this  recognition  of  the 
reality  of  the  individual  into  sharp  relief.  But  in  doing 
this  it  ran  the  inevitable  risk  of  going  itself  to  an  extreme. 
From  the  conception  of  man  simply  as  a  dependent  part 
of  the  world,  subject  to  authority,  it  passed  to  the  concep- 
tion of  man  as  a  mere  self-centred  unit,  complete  without 
reference  to  other  things.  In  its  deification  of  the  logical 
reason,  and  dislike  of  all  mysticism  and  unclear  thinking, 


The  Growth  of  Empiricism  401 

it  was  bent  on  setting  off  everything  as  sharply  by  itself 
as  possible,  defining  it  in  terms  of  its  own  nature  alone, 
and  getting  rid  of  all  confusing  complications.  By  human 
convention  all  sorts  of  relations  might  be  superinduced 
upon  a  man ;  but  these  were  arbitrary,  and  for  the  most 
part  unjustifiable.  To  get  at  the  real  man,  we  must  strip 
them  all  away.  So  society,  instead  of  being  a  necessary 
expression  of  needs  of  man's  nature,  is  only  an  arbitrary 
contract,  which  men  make  for  the  sake  of  certain  external 
advantages.  It  is  necessary,  indeed,  if  these  are  to  be 
attained,  but  still  is  a  lamentable  curtailing  of  the  privi- 
leges men  enjoy  by  nature. 

Of  course,  with  such  a  belief,  there  could  be  no  recog- 
nition of  the  organic  way  in  which  man,  and  all  his  powers, 
are  rooted  in  the  past  life  of  the  race.  It  was  thought 
that,  by  a  pure  effort  of  will,  he  could  separate  himself 
from  this,  and  could  judge  things  from  the  standpoint  of  a 
purely  individual  reason,  unmediated  by  his  intellectual 
and  spiritual  environment,  and  freed  from  all  prejudices 
and  traditions.  If  anything  did  not  fall  in  with  this,  it 
was  not  to  be  interpreted  sympathetically  by  reference  to 
the  conditions  of  its  development,  but  rejected  outright  as 
sheer  unreason,  or  the  deliberate  result  of  self-seeking 
fraud.  So  religion,  e.g.,  was  carried  back  to  the  invention 
of  priests  and  rulers.  Accordingly,  it  was  thought  that 
institutions  could  be  thrown  off  at  any  moment  —  that  was 
what  the  French  Revolution  attempted  —  and  a  start  made 
entirely  de  novo.  It  was  not  understood  that  they  are 
necessarily  not  a  manufacture,  but  a  growth,  and  that  to 
grow  they  must  have  roots  in  that  very  past  which  was 
so  much  despised. 

Such  a  conception  of  man  is  evidently  poor,  and  devoid 
of  content.  Strip  him  of  his  relations  to  society  —  and 
that  means  to  the  forms  which  social  life  takes  on  —  and 
what  is  left  of  him  ?  His  very  life  consists  in  these  rela- 
tionships which  Rationalism  was  for  doing  away  with  as 
mere  restrictions.  He  is  not  first  a  man,  and  then  a  citi- 

2D 


•  402        A   Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

zen,  a  father,  a  neighbor ;  he  is  a  man  only  in  so  far  as  he 
is  already  these.  The  life  of  the  free  savage  ceases  to  be 
the  life  of  a  man  just  to  the  extent  that  it  is  sufficient  to 
itself.  It  was  necessary,  then,  if  progress  was  to  have  any 
material  to  work  upon,  that  this  belief  in  the  isolatedness 
and  self-sufficiency  of  man's  nature  should  in  turn  be 
overcome,  and  the  connection  with  the  world  restored. 
But  it  is  to  be  restored  in  a  different  form.  The  outer 
relations  are  to  be  internalized,  and  made  to  grow  out  of 
man  himself.  They  are  to  be  recognized  as  having  the 
weight  of  inner  authority,  not  simply  of  external.  They 
mean  not  bondage,  but  freedom  —  the  only  true  freedom, 
since  through  them  alone  the  possibility  of  self-realization 
is  secured.  And  so,  too,  they  are  not  stiff  and  unalter- 
able, but  plastic  to  the  touch  of  the  individual  of  whom 
they  are  an  expression.  They  are  capable  of  being 
changed  by  him,  not  arbitrarily,  but  in  accordance  with 
an  inner  law.  The  individual  is  still  real,  and  still  free, 
but  not  as  a  mere  individual.  In  him  there  is  a  universal 
element  which  gives  him  a  kinship  with  the  universe,  and 
makes  the  very  act  by  which  he  realizes  himself,  the  act 
by  which  also  the  social  whole,  and  the  whole  of  the  uni- 
verse, gets  its  fulfilment. 

The  relation  of  Rousseau  to  this  new  movement,  was  in- 
direct rather  than  fully  conscious.  In  many  ways  he  was 
still  a  child  of  the  Enlightenment,  so  far  at  least  as  his  for- 
mulated creed  was  concerned.  Few,  indeed,  have  given  the 
principle  of  individualism  a  sharper  expression.  The 
whole  burden  of  the  cry  with  which  he  moved  France  to 
its  foundations  is  summed  up  in  the  phrase  "  a  return  to 
nature."  Away  with  all  the  artificial  conventions  and  re- 
strictions of  society,  which  are  false  and  unnatural  to  their 
core ;  let  us  go  back  to  the  simple  life  of  primitive  man, 
when  each,  a  free  creature,  with  tranquil  spirit  and  healthy 
body,  was  at  liberty  to  develop  his  own  nature  without  let 
or  hindrance.  Civilization  is  nothing  but  slavery,  a  huge 
series  of  blunders,  which  carry  us  ever  farther  from  the 


The  Growth  of  Empiricism  403 

right  path.  "  So  long  as  men  were  content  with  their  rus- 
tic huts,  so  long  as  they  confined  themselves  to  stitching 
their  garments  of  skin  with  spines  or  fish  bones,  to  deck- 
ing themselves  with  feathers  and  shells,  and  painting  their 
bodies  in  different  colors,  to  perfecting  and  adorning  their 
bows  and  their  arrows  —  in  a  word,  so  long  as  they  only 
applied  themselves  to  works  that  a  single  man  could  do, 
and  to  arts  that  had  no  need  of  more  hands  than  one,  they 
lived  free,  healthy,  good,  and  happy,  so  far  as  their  nature 
would  allow,  and  continued  to  enjoy  among  themselves 
the  sweetness  of  independent  intercourse.  But  from  the 
moment  one  man  had  need  of  the  help  of  another,  the 
moment  they  perceived  it  was  useful  for  one  person  to 
have  provisions  for  two,  equality  disappeared,  property  was 
introduced,  labor  became  necessary,  and  the  vast  forests 
changed  into  smiling  fields,  which  had  to  be  watered  by 
the  sweat  of  men,  and  in  which  slavery  and  wretchedness 
were  soon  seen  springing  up  and  growing  ripe  with  the 
harvests."  The  working  of  metals,  and  agriculture,  the 
acquirement  of  property,  the  growth  of  civil  society,  are 
successive  steps  in  the  process  of  enslavement.  "The 
first  man  who,  having  enclosed  a  piece  of  ground,  be- 
thought himself  of  saying,  This  is  mine,  and  found  peo- 
ple simple  enough  to  believe  him,  was  the  true  founder 
of  civil  society.  How  many  crimes,  wars,  murders,  what 
miseries  and  horrors  would  have  not  been  spared  the 
human  race  by  one  who,  tearing  up  the  stakes,  or  filling 
the  ditch,  should  have  called  out  to  his  fellows :  Beware  of 
listening  to  this  impostor ;  you  are  lost  if  you  forget  that 
the  earth  belongs  to  no  one,  and  that  its  fruits  belong  to 
all."  l  All  subsequent  history  has  consisted  in  deepening 
the  artificial  inequalities  which  here  got  a  foothold.  They 
can  only  be  overcome  by  an  entire  reconstruction.  The 
supposed  proofs  that  civilization  represents  a  development 
are  merely  specious.  The  science  and  culture  in  which 
the  Enlighteners  took  such  inordinate  pride,  instead  of 

1  Discourse  on  Inequality  (quoted  from  Morley,  Rousseau,  I,  p.  166). 


404        A  Students  History  of  Philosophy 

being  self-evident  proofs' of  our  superiority  to  all  the  past, 
are  just  another  example  of  unfounded  prejudice.  Exam- 
ined, they  will  be  seen  to  have  no  meaning  whatever  in 
terms  of  human  welfare,  except  as  they  heighten  the  cor- 
ruption of  the  age.  Men  were  far  better  off  before  the 
sciences  arose.  This  is  the  argument  of  Rousseau's  two 
earliest  treatises,  — the  Discourse  on  the  Sciences  and  the 
Arts,  and  the  Discourse  on  the  Origin  and  the  Bases  of  the 
Inequality  among  Men. 

In  his  more  sober  moments,  however,  Rousseau  did  not 
really  intend  to  deny  the  value  of  the  social  life  altogether, 
but  only  to  place  it  on  a  different  basis.  What  he  did  pro- 
test against  was  the  notion  that  there  was  anything  of  real 
worth  in  a  civilization  which  consisted  simply  in  a  high  in- 
tellectual culture,  and  in  the  development  of  the  arts,  and 
sciences,  and  inventions  depending  upon  the  intellect  — 
that  is,  in  the  whole  ideal  of  Rationalism.  For  the  concep- 
tion of  man  as  first  of  all  intellect  —  cold,  unimpas- 
sioned,  critical  reason,  before  which  all  the  sentiment  and 
enthusiasm  of  life  dies  away  —  he  held  the  utmost  detesta- 
tion. In  opposition  to  the  Lockian  psychology,  which 
makes  man's  life  a  mere  play  of  ideas,  Rousseau  insisted  on 
the  unity  of  the  self ;  and  this  essential  and  very  inmost 
man  is  —  not  intellect,  but  — feeling. 

It  was  in  his  revelation  of  the  power  and  beauty  of  the 
feeling  element  in  man's  life,  to  a  world  incrusted  with 
blase'  artificiality,  that  the  essence  of  Rousseau's  contribu- 
tion lay.  For  there  was  in  feeling,  on  the  one  hand,  a  unify- 
ing force  to  set  against  the  purely  analytic  understanding. 
That  emotional  outgoing  toward  nature,  and  sympathy 
toward  man,  which  feeling  implies,  was  in  a  blind  way, 
indeed,  but  still  effectively,  the  revelation  of  an  essential 
kinship  with  other  things,  which  only  needed  to  find 
an  adequate  statement  to  revolutionize  thought.  Rous- 
seau was  quite  conscious  of  this  constructive  side  of  his 
message.  I  hate,  he  says,  this  rage  to  destroy  without 
building  up ;  and  again :  To  liberate  a  man,  it  is  not 


The  Growth  of  Empiricism  405 

enough  merely  to  break  his  chains.  But  more  than  this, 
feeling  supplies  also  the  motive  power  necessary  for  set- 
ting man  at  work  to  realize  himself,  and  to  remedy  things 
instead  of  simply  criticising  them.  This  power  might, 
indeed,  when  undisciplined,  result  in  the  horrors  of  a 
French  Revolution ;  but  it  has  also  been  the  source  of 
numberless  positive  blessings. 

Accordingly,  this  new  insight  is  at  work  in  all  Rous- 
seau's philosophy,  influencing  it  even  when  it  seems  to 
approach  closest  to  Rationalism.  Thus,  his  conception  of 
religion  is  still  an  abstract  Deism ;  but  it  is  suffused  with  a 
glow  of  emotion  which  is  a  promise  of  better  things,  and 
which  enables  him  to  assert  that  he  is  the  only  man  of  his 
age  who  really  believes  in  God.  It  was  because  the  material- 
ism of  his  contemporaries  offered  him  a  world  with  which 
he  could  come  into  no  emotional  relation,  that  he  felt  so 
strongly  against  them.  Religion  is  an  affair  of  the  heart, 
not  of  the  head.  It  does  not  depend  on  a  belief  in  tradi- 
tion, and  what  some  other  man  has  said.  "  Is  it  simple  or 
natural  that  God  should  have  gone  in  search  of  Moses  to 
speak  to  Jean  Jacques  Rousseau  ?  "  Nor  can  it  be  rea- 
soned out  beyond  the  reach  of  scepticism.  But  conscience 
and  feeling  are  as  real  as  reason.  "  I  believe  in  God  as 
fully  as  I  believe  in  any  other  truth,  because  to  believe  or 
not  to  believe  are  the  things  in  the  world  that  are  least 
under  my  control ;  because,  when  my  reason  is  wavering, 
my  faith  cannot  rest  long  in  suspense ;  because,  finally,  a 
thousand  motives  of  preference  attract  me  to  the  side  that 
is  most  consoling,  and  join  the  weight  of  hope  to  the  equi- 
librium of  reason." 

And  so  on  the  side  of  social  theory,  where  Rousseau's 
greatest  importance  lies,  the  claims  of  feeling  tend  contin- 
ually to  carry  him  on  to  a  more  adequate  conception  of 
man  than  the  purely  individualistic  one.  This  makes  him, 
first  of  all,  the  Apostle  of  the  common  man,  in  whom  are 
represented  those  simple  and  fundamental  traits  of  human- 
ity which  appeal  to  Rousseau,  and  which  go  back  of  rank, 


406        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

and  all  external  and  artificial  advantages.  "  It  is  the  common 
people  who  compose  the  human  race  ;  what  is  not  the  people 
is  so  trivial  that  it  is  not  worth  taking  into  account.  Before 
one  who  reflects,  all  civil  distinctions  disappear ;  he  sees  the 
same  passions,  the  same  feelings  in  the  clown  as  in  the 
man  of  note  and  reputation ;  he  only  distinguishes  their 
language,  and  a  varnish  more  or  less  elaborately  laid  on." 
And  this  democracy  is  continually  on  the  point  of  passing 
into  a  conception  of  the  unity  of  man  and  society,  which  is 
quite  the  opposite  of  Rousseau's  starting-point ;  although 
such  a  unity  fails  to  get  any  clear  and  unambiguous 
expression. 

Like  Hobbes  and  Locke  before  him,  Rousseau  bases 
society  on  a  contract,  by  which  men  agree,  for  certain 
advantages,  to  give  up  that  unrestricted  individual  freedom 
which  belongs  to  them  by  nature.  But  while  this  is  some- 
times put  in  the  form  of  an  historical  event,  Rousseau  does 
not  insist  upon  this  aspect  of  it.  In  reality,  it  stands  rather 
for  a  statement  of  the  conditions  necessary  to  give  social 
life  a  rational  and  just  foundation,  in  opposition  to  theories 
which  carry  it  back  to  force,  or  mere  status.  Society  can 
only  have  its  real  justification  in  the  advantages  it  brings. 
In  spite  of  his  earlier  utterances,  and  the  echo  of  these  in 
the  famous  words  with  which  the  Social  Contract  opens  — 
Man  is  born  free,  and  is  everywhere  in  chains  —  Rous- 
seau is  far  from  thinking  that  savage  life  is  the  ideal. 
Rather,  he  recognizes  that  it  is  only  in  society  that  man 
truly  lives  at  all.  "  What  man  loses  by  the  social  contract 
is  his  natural  liberty,  and  an  unlimited  right  to  anything 
that  tempts  him,  which  he  can  obtain ;  what  he  gains  is 
civil  liberty,  and  the  ownership  of  all  that  he  possesses." 
A  morality  is  given  to  his  actions  which  they  lacked  before. 
"  His  faculties  exercise  and  develop,  his  ideas  expand,  his 
sentiments  become  ennobled,  his  whole  spirit  is  elevated  to 
such  a  point  that,  if  the  abuse  of  this  new  condition  did  not 
often  degrade  him  below  that  from  which  he  came,  he 
ought  to  bless  without  ceasing  the  happy  moment  which 


The  Growth  of  Empiricism  407 

took  him  from  it  forever,  and  which  has  made  of  a  dull 
stupid  animal,  an  intelligent  being  —  a  man."1 

The  problem  is,  then,  to  substitute  for  an  abstract  and 
savage  freedom  a  substantial  and  moral  one ;  for  a  natural 
equality,  a  political  equality.  In  general,  the  medium  of 
this  is  a  contract,  according  to  which  each  one  is  to  sink 
his  private,  individual  will  in  the  general  will,  the  will  of 
the  whole.  The  special  value  of  Rousseau's  conception 
lies  in  his  tendency  to  regard  this  at  bottom,  not  merely  as 
a  giving  up  of  rights  for  the  sake  of  other  external  advan- 
tages—  life  and  security  —  but  rather  as  a  discovery  of 
one's  true  and  permanent  self.  He  is  on  the  point,  at  least, 
of  recognizing  the  truth  that  the  individual,  capricious  will 
is  not  the  real  man  after  all ;  that  the  true  self  is  not  antago- 
nistic to,  but  inclusive  of  one's  fellows,  and  so  can  have  a 
chance  to  develop  only  in  society.  Each  individual  may, 
as  a  man,  have  a  particular  will,  contrary  to  or  unlike  the 
general  will  which  he  has  as  a  citizen  ;  his  particular  inter- 
est may  speak  to  him  quite  differently  from  the  common 
interest.  But  this  latter  really  represents  him  more  ade- 
quately than  the  former.  The  general  will  is  not  the  mere 
sum  of  the  particular  wills  ;  it  is  an  organic  unity.  When 
the  individual  is  constrained  to  obey  the  general  will  by 
society,  he  is  not  being  enslaved,  but  is  being  "  forced  to  be 
free,"  forced  to  resist  the  temptation  to  sacrifice  his  lesser 
to  his  larger  self. 

With  Rousseau,  however,  this  is  hardly  more  than  a  sug- 
gestion, and  when  he  goes  on  to  connect  it  with  his  govern- 
mental machinery,  he  tends  to  give  it  too  abstract  and 
external  an  interpretation  to  do  justice  to  his  deeper  insight. 
Concretely,  the  general  will  is  the  resultant  of  a  popular 
vote,  in  which  every  citizen  participates.  "  Take  from 
these  same  wills  the  plus  and  the  minus  which  destroy  each 
other,  and  there  will  remain  for  the  sum  of  the  differences 
the  general  will."2  Such  a  vote,  on  a  matter  of  general 

1  Bk.  I,  8.     Harrington's  translation.     (G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons.) 

2  Bk.  II,  3. 


408        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

principle  —  and  with  reference  to  an  individual  application 
of  a  principle,  the  general  will  cannot  pronounce  —  does 
away  with  private  interests  by  making  the  question  entirely 
abstract.  Each  individual,  inasmuch  as  he  will  consider 
that  the  law  he  is  passing  is  going  to  apply  to  himself,  will 
vote  for  that  which  seems  to  him  abstractly  the  best,  in 
order,  if  need  be,  to  get  the  advantage  of  it  in  his  own  case. 
"  Why  is  the  general  will  always  right,  and  why  do  all 
desire  constantly  the  happiness  of  each,  unless  it  is  because 
there  is  no  person  who  does  not  appropriate  to  himself  the 
word  '  each,'  and  who  does  not  think  of  himself  while 
voting  for  all  ?  "  J  Each  submits  necessarily  to  the  condi- 
tions he  imposes  on  others  ;  "  it  is  for  the  sake  of  not  being 
killed  by  an  assassin  that  we  consent  to  be  killed  if  we 
become  assassins."  Of  course,  in  attempting  to  legislate 
for  a  particular  case,  this  common  interest  no  longer  exists, 
and  private  interests  have  a  chance  to  assert  themselves ; 
and  so  the  general  will  can  only  act  in  the  case  of  legisla- 
tion that  is  entirely  general  in  character. 

It  is  natural  to  ask,  however,  how  such  a  majority  rule 
can  represent  the  general  will,  if  this  latter  is  really  to  be 
denned  as  identical  with  the  true  will  of  the  individual. 
Must  not  the  result  be  contrary  to  the  will  of  the  one  who 
votes  against  it,  and  so  not  an  expression  of  himself,  but 
an  enslavement  ?  The  question  points  again  to  the  inade- 
quacy of  Rousseau's  theory  to  express  his  deeper  thought. 
He  has  an  answer  to  the  difficulty,  indeed,  but  it  is  not  a 
very  satisfactory  one.  The  citizen  consents  to  all  the  laws, 
even  those  which  are  passed  in  spite  of  him ;  for  when  he 
votes,  what  is  asked  is  "not  whether  he  approves  the 
proposition  or  whether  he  rejects  it,  but  whether  or  not 
it  conforms  to  the  general  will.  Each  one  in  giving  his 
vote  gives  his  opinion  upon  it,  and  from  the  counting  of 
the  votes  is  deduced  the  declaration  of  the  general  will. 
When,  however,  the  opinion  contrary  to  mine  prevails,  it 
shows  only  that  I  was  mistaken,  and  that  what  I  had  sup- 

iBk.  II,  4. 


The  Growth  of  Empiricism  409 

posed  to  be  the  general  will  was  not  general.  If  my  indi- 
vidual opinion  had  prevailed,  I  should  have  done  some- 
thing other  than  I  had  intended,  and  then  I  should  not 
have  been  free."  * 

3.  Lessing  and  Herder.  —  In  France,  Rousseau's  ideas 
were  destined  to  be  carried  out  practically  in  their  most 
extreme  form,  in  the  doctrinaireism  of  the  French  Revolu- 
tion. It  was  in  Germany,  however,  that  their  real  signifi- 
cance was  first  appreciated.  Here  they  proved  to  be  a 
main  factor  among  the  influences  which  were  to  bring 
about  one  of  the  great  periods  of  intellectual  develop- 
ment in  the  history  of  the  world.  In  Germany,  possessed 
hitherto  of  only  a  scanty  literature,  and,  apart  from  Leibniz, 
of  hardly  any  philosophy  worthy  the  name,  there  suddenly 
appears  both  a  literature  and  a  philosophy  of  the  first 
magnitude.  In  both  of  these,  the  same  principle  is  at 
work.  Both  alike  stand  for  the  rediscovery  of  the  value 
of  the  inner  life,  as  opposed  alike  to  the  authority  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  and  the  cold  intellectualism  of  the  Enlighten- 
ment. They  demand  the  actualizing  of  the  abstract  free- 
dom of  man  —  the  outcome  of  the  individualism  of  the 
Enlightenment  —  in  forms  of  concrete  worth  and  beauty. 
A  fresh  sense  of  the  possibilities  of  life  and  feeling  arises 
in  the  undisciplined  eagerness,  of  the  Sturm  und  Drang 
period,  for  personal  realization  in  every  variety  of  experi- 
ence. This  abounding  energy,  restrained  and  regulated 
by  the  sense  of  artistic  proportion  and  law,  which  the  new 
appreciation  of  Greek  art,  through  the  labors  of  Winckel- 
mann  and  Lessing,  had  made  at  home  in  Germany,  created 
an  ideal  of  its  own.  Living  itself  became  an  art,  a  thing 
of  joyousness  and  beauty.  A  way  of  looking  at  things 
sprang  up  which  had  almost  nothing  in  common  with  the 
typical  outcome  of  the  Enlightenment.  "We  could  not 
understand,"  says  Goethe,  in  speaking  of  the  impression 
which  Holbach's  System  of  Nature  made  upon  himself  and 
his  associates,  "  how  such  a  book  could  be  dangerous.  It 

i  Bk.  IV,  2. 


4io        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

appeared  to  us  so  dark,  so  Cimmerian,  so  deathlike,  that 
we  could  scarcely  find  patience  to  endure  its  presence." 

So,  also,  through  the  medium  of  this  same  new  sympathy, 
there  came  a  deeper  sense  of  the  meaning  of  the  historical. 
In  Lessings  case,  this  concerned  itself  chiefly  with  the 
development  of  religion.  For  the  Rationalist,  as  has  been 
said,  there  had  been  no  middle  ground  between  the  truth 
of  a  religion  on  the  basis  of  reason,  and  its  falsity,  and 
consequent  origin  in  fraud  and  priestcraft.  In  Lessing 
the  thought  is  brought  forward  clearly  and  unambiguously, 
that  the  dilemma  is  an  unreal  one.  Absolute  truth,  indeed, 
we  cannot  know ;  but  also  there  is  no  absolutely  false. 
Early  religions  are  steps  in  the  progressive  revelation  by 
which  God  educates  mankind ;  the  true  religion  of  reason 
can  only  come  as  the  result  of  a  long  process  leading  up 
to  it,  and  so  positive  religions  have  a  relative  justification. 
This  is  the  keynote  of  Lessing's  Education  of  the  Human 
Race ;  and  while  it  still  is  clothed  in  an  inadequate  form, 
it  makes  a  decisive  break  from  the  Enlightenment,  and 
opens  up  the  way  for  a  new  appreciation  of  religion,  and 
of  the  whole  historical  life  of  man. 

In  like  manner  there  is  implied  a  different  view  of  God. 
God  is  no  longer  an  abstraction  apart  from  the  life  of  the 
world,  to  be  reached  in  a  cold  intellectual  way,  as  the  result 
of  a  process  of  reasoning.  He  is  to  be  seen  actually  present 
and  energizing,  in  nature,  in  the  course  of  human  events, 
in  the  heart  of  the  spiritual  experience,  which  all  have 
their  reality  and  unity  in  him.  Now  we  have  seen  that  it 
was  Spinoza  who,  of  all  philosophers,  insisted  most  strongly 
on  the  unity  and  immanence  of  God.  And  as  Spinoza  had 
failed  of  any  great  immediate  influence,  because  he  was  so 
far  removed  from  the  temper  of  the  Enlightenment,  so  now, 
in  a  soil  prepared  for  him,  he  begins  to  attain  a  high  de- 
gree of  importance.  It  is  Spinoza,  with  his  ez>  KOI  TTCLV, 
who  is  preeminently  the  philosopher  of  the  German  liter- 
ary  movement.  A  God  distinct  from  the  world  is  unen- 
durable to  the  new  feeling  for  the  beauty  of  the  universe, 


The  Growth  of  Empiricism  411 

and  the  significance  of  the  inner  life.  There  is  nothing  to 
satisfy  us  in  a  God  who  "  sat  like  a  scrupulous  artist  beat- 
ing his  brains,  and  making  plans,  comparisons,  rejections, 
and  selections,  who  played  with  worlds  as  children  with 
soap  bubbles,  till  he  gave  preference  to  the  one  which 
pleased  him  most";  who,  "in  the  great  Inane  of  primeval, 
inactive  eternity,  has  his  corner  where  he  contemplates 
himself,  and  probably  ponders  on  the  project  of  another 
world." 

The  conception  of  development  which,  by  Lessing,  is 
applied  to  the  history  of  religion,  is  extended  by  Herder 
to  the  whole  life  of  man.  The  insight  that  everything 
grows  and  develops,  and  that  nothing  is  perfected  at  once, 
pervades  the  whole  of  his  work.  A  beginning  is  made  of 
a  science  of  language,  by  regarding  this,  not  as  a  thing  of 
divine  origin,  or  a  manufactured  product,  but  as  an  organic 
growth.  The  same  sympathetic  insight  leads  Herder  to 
take  a  special  interest  in  primitive  poetry  and  folk-lore, 
which  the  artificial  tastes  of  the  preceding  age  had  passed 
by  with  scorn.  And  in  his  Ideas  for  the  Philosophy  of  the 
History  of  Mankind,  the  attempt  is  made,  with  a  consider- 
able degree  of  success,  to  bring  the  whole  course  of  human 
development  under  the  conception  of  a  unitary  process. 

LITERATURE 

Rousseau,  Chief  Works :  fimile   (1762);  Social  Contract  (1762); 
Confessions  (1782). 
Morley,  Voltaire. 

Morley,  Diderot  and  the  Encyclopedists. 
Morley,  Rousseau. 

Bosanquet,  Philosophical  Theory  of  the  State. 
Caird,  Essays  on  Literature  and  Philosophy. 
Davidson,  Rousseau  and  Education  according  to  Nature. 
Lessing,  Education  of  the  Human  Race,  Nathan  the  Wise. 
Herder,  Ideas  for  the  Philosophy  of  the  History  of  Mankind. 


GERMAN   IDEALISM 

§  36.    Kant 

Immanuel  Kant  was  born  in  Konigsberg  in  1724,  and 
spent  his  life  without  leaving  his  native  province.  The 
story  of  his  life  is  thus  the  story  of  the  development  of  his 
thought.  He  became  Professor  of  Philosophy  at  the  Uni- 
versity of  Konigsberg  in  1 770.  His  Critique  of  Pure  Reason, 
published  in  1781,  raised  him  to  the  foremost  position 
among  living  philosophers,  but  his  growing  fame  did  not 
serve  to  alter  his  manner  of  life.  His  simple  habits  grew 
more  and  more  regular  and  methodical  as  he  grew  older, 
and  his  interests  limited  themselves  more  exclusively  to  his 
abstract  speculations.  Heine's  description  of  him  is  fre- 
quently quoted :  — 

"  The  life  of  Immanuel  Kant  is  hard  to  describe ;  he  has 
indeed  neither  life  nor  history  in  the  proper  sense  of  the 
words.  He  lived  an  abstract,  mechanical,  old-bachelor  ex- 
istence, in  a  quiet,  remote  street  in  Konigsberg,  an  old 
city  at  the  northeastern  boundary  of  Germany.  I  do  not 
believe  that  the  great  cathedral  clock  of  that  city  accom- 
plished its  day's  work  in  a  less  passionate  and  more  regular 
way  than  its  countryman,  Immanuel  Kant.  Rising  from 
bed,  coffee-drinking,  writing,  lecturing,  eating,  walking, 
everything  had  its  fixed  time ;  and  the  neighbors  knew  that 
it  must  be  exactly  half-past  four  when  they  saw  Professor 
Kant,  in  his  gray  coat,  with  his  cane  in  his  hand,  step  out 
of  his  house  door,  and  move  toward  the  little  lime-tree 
avenue,  which  is  named,  after  him,  the  Philosopher's  Walk. 
Eight  times  he  walked  up  and  down  that  walk  at  every 
season  of  the  year :  and  when  the  weather  was  bad,  his 
servant,  old  Lampe,  was  seen  anxiously  following  him  with 

412 


German  Idealism  413 

a  large  umbrella  under  his  arm,  like  an  image  of  Provi- 
dence. Strange  contrast  between  the  outward  life  of  the 
man,  and  his  world-destroying  thought.  Of  a  truth,  if  the 
citizens  of  Konigsberg  had  had  any  inkling  of  the  mean- 
ing of  that  thought,  they  would  have  shuddered  before 
him  as  before  an  executioner.  But  the  good  people  saw 
nothing  in  him  but  a  professor  of  philosophy ;  and  when 
he  passed  at  the  appointed  hour,  they  gave  him  friendly 
greetings  —  and  set  their  watches."1 

I.  77/(?  Nature  of  Kan? s  Problem,  —  It  is  difficult  to 
make  any  brief  statement  which  will  give  an  approximate 
notion,  even,  of  the  importance  of  the  revolution  which 
Kant  was  the  means  of  bringing  about  in  philosophy.  One 
needs  to  have  studied  both  Kant  and  his  successors,  and  to 
have  some  appreciation  of  the  main  currents  of  thought  in 
recent  times,  before  he  can  easily  see  into  the  significance 
of  Kant's  new  attitude  toward  philosophical  problems. 
Roughly,  however,  it  may  be  said  that  this  centres  about 
two  points  in  particular ;  and  of  these,  the  one  it  will  be 
convenient  to  consider  first,  is  the  new  conception  of  ex- 
perience and  of  thought  which  is  involved. 

We  have  seen  that,  according  to  Hume,  the  reality  of 
the  world  is  dissolved  into  a  host  of  unrelated  feelings,  or 
sensations,  which,  summed  together,  compose  the  human 
mind.  But  is  this  a  tenable  conception  ?  Is  it  not  rather 
suicidal  ?  Must  there  not  be  certain  relating  activities  of 
the  mind,  which  are  not  themselves  feelings,  to  work  upon 
the  material  of  sense,  before  even  feelings  can  be  known, 
and  form  a  true  experience  ?  If  mere  sensations  were  the 
sole  reality,  would  they  not  be  shut  up,  each  in  its  own 
skin,  and  be  wholly  impervious  to  other  sensations  ?  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  however,  sensations  are  not  thus  isolated. 
Somehow  or  other  they  get  related,  they  enter  into  a  uni- 
fied consciousness,  which  thus  is  more  than  the  mere  sum 
of  them  taken  together,  since  they  are  experienced  not  as 
a  collection  of  isolated  units,  but  as  an  interconnected  and 

1  Quoted  from  Royce's  Spirit  of  Modern  Philosophy. 


414         A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

orderly  whole.  There  is  a  term  of  which  Kant  makes  a 
great  deal  of  use  in  the  Critique  —  the  term  synthetic.  A 
synthetic  judgment  is  one  which  goes  beyond  the  meaning 
of  the  subject  term,  and  binds  to  this  some  new  idea  not 
already  contained  there ;  as  when,  for  example,  I  see  my 
dog  running  across  the  field,  and,  adding  to  the  idea  of  dog 
a  new  qualification,  I  say,  "  My  dog  is  chasing  a  rabbit." 
On  the  other  hand,  if  I  say,  "  A  dog  is  an  animal,"  I  am 
only  making  explicit  an  idea  already  contained  in  the 
concept  'dog,'  and  my  judgment  is  analytic.  We  may 
say,  then,  using  this  terminology,  that  there  is  to  expe- 
rience a  synthetic  side  for  which  Hume  does  not  account. 
The  relatedness  of  sensations,  the  unity  which  binds  them 
together,  is  a  new  element,  which  cannot  be  extracted  from 
the  isolated  sensations  themselves.  To  know  two  sensa- 
tions together  implies  a  state  of  consciousness  which  is  not 
simply  another  sensation ;  for  if  it  were,  how  could  it  bind 
together  the  first  two?  It  would  only  add  another  term  to 
the  problem.  Before  sensations  can  be  known,  even  in 
the  simple  relations  of  resemblance,  or  of  contiguity  in 
time  or  space,  they  must  be  brought  into  a  unified  con- 
sciousness, which  thus  is  no  mere  additional  sense  fact, 
but  an  intellectual  synthesis,  presupposed  by  every  possi- 
bility of  experience. 

Kant,  then,  has  pointed  out  that  for  the  possibility  of  real 
knowledge,  it  is  necessary  to  presuppose  a  certain  frame- 
work of  thought  relationships  over  and  above  the  sense 
content  to  which  Hume  had  reduced  knowledge.  But  now, 
furthermore,  the  part  which  thought  plays  with  reference  to 
the  objects  of  knowledge  is  conceived  by  Kant  in  a  special 
and  relatively  novel  way.  Commonly  in  the  past  the  rela- 
tion of  thought  to  its  object  had  been  understood  in  terms 
of  the  relation  of  a  copy  or  reproduction  to  its  prototype. 
For  Kant,  on  the  contrary,  the  relation  is  constitutive. 
The  world,  in  so  far  as  it  is  a  known  world,  is  a  construct 
of  thought.  Any  object,  to  be  known,  must  enter  into  the 
world  of  knowledge,  the  thought  world ;  and  therefore  be- 


German  Idealism  415 

tween  thought  and  its  object  there  is  no  separateness,  but 
an  identity.  To  be  real,  to  be  objective,  is  to  have  a  fixed 
place  in  this  system  of  thought,  not  to  exist  beyond  it. 
An  object  is,  only  as  it  is  for  knowledge  ;  and  so  it  is 
actually  built  up  out  of  these  intellectual  relationships 
which  Kant  had  pointed  out.  It  is  this  which  makes  ex- 
perience no  mere  string  of  subjective  feelings,  but  an 
ordered  and  orderly  world  of  things. 

For  Kant,  accordingly,  the  great  principle  of  modern 
thought,  which  gives  to  consciousness,  or  the  self,  the 
fundamental  place  in  the  interpretation  of  the  world,  is 
reasserted  in  a  new  form.  The  world  for  us  is  not  a 
datum  given  by  some  external  power.  It  is  not  an  objec- 
tive fact  independent  of  us,  to  be  defended  or  criticised  as 
such.  It  is  the  product  of  the  laws  of  our  own  under- 
standing, acting,  of  course,  in  no  arbitrary  way,  but  in 
accordance  with  fixed  and  definite  principles,  which  are  not 
peculiar  to  our  separate  individuality.  Human  experience 
gives  the  point  of  view  for  the  interpretation  of  every- 
thing that  we  can  know ;  between  the  world,  and  ourselves, 
there  is  an  inner  identity. 

Such,  briefly,  is  the  first  of  the  two  main  aspects  of 
Kant's  thought.  We  may  turn  now  to  a  somewhat  more 
specific  statement.  And  Kant's  chief  problem  centres 
about  a  fact  to  which  already  reference  has  several  times 
been  made.  Kant's  metaphysical  point  of  view  is  most 
easily  understood  by  reference  to  Hume.  Kant  had  been 
originally  an  adherent  of  the  school  of  Wolff,  who  had 
attempted  to  systematize  the  philosophy  of  Leibniz.  But 
he  very  soon  had  become  dissatisfied  with  this.  Wolff 
was  a  Rationalist  of  the  most  extreme  type.  He  had  the 
completest  confidence  that,  by  the  use  of  certain  abstract 
principles  of  reason,  we  can  attain  a  demonstrative  knowl- 
edge of  ultimate  verities.  Kant  found  himself  constantly 
less  able  to  share  this  confidence.  The  more  he  thought,  the 
more  difficulty  he  found  in  the  way  of  applying  the  a  priori 
method  of  geometry  to  the  facts  with  which  philosophy  is 


41 6         A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

concerned.  Is  truth  not  attainable  at  all  then  ?  this  Kant 
was  not  willing  to  admit.  For  a  time  he  tried  to  take 
refuge  in  Empiricism.  But  Hume  had  revealed  to  him 
clearly  the  outcome  of  Empiricism  —  the  overthrow  of  all 
knowledge  whatsoever. 

Now  the  main  problem  which  had  engaged  Hume  — 
the  problem  of  causation  —  will  suggest  the  nature  of 
Kant's  central  difficulty.  Here  is  a  supposed  truth  with- 
out which  it  had  abundantly  appeared  that  philosophers, 
to  say  nothing  of  scientists,  could  make  no  headway  at  all 
in  knowledge.  But  whence  does  it  come  ?  It  cannot  be 
derived  from  experience.  Hume  had  shown  this  clearly. 
With  the  difficulties  in  the  rationalistic  explanation  Kant 
had  been  long  familiar.  Here,  then,  is  a  point  which 
neither  of  the  rival  schools  had  found  themselves  able 
satisfactorily  to  clear  up. 

"There  can  be  no  doubt  whatever  that  all  our  knowledge 
begins  with  experience.  By  what  means  should  the  faculty 
of  knowledge  be  aroused  to  activity,  but  by  objects  which, 
acting  upon  our  senses,  partly  of  themselves  produce  ideas 
in  us,  and  partly  set  our  understanding  at  work  to  com- 
pare these  ideas  with  one  another,  and,  by  combining  or 
separating  them,  to  convert  the  raw  material  of  our  sen- 
sible impressions  into  that  knowledge  of  objects  which  is 
called  experience?  In  the  order  of  time,  therefore,  we 
have  no  knowledge  prior  to  experience,  and  with  expe- 
rience all  our  knowledge  begins. 

"  But,  although  all  our  knowledge  begins  with  experience, 
it  by  no  means  follows  that  it  all  originates  from  expe- 
rience. For  it  may  well  be  that  experience  is  itself  made 
up  of  two  elements,  one  received  through  impressions  of 
sense,  and  the  other  supplied  from  itself  by  our  faculty  of 
knowledge  on  occasion  of  those  impressions.  It  is,  there- 
fore, a  question  which  cannot  be  lightly  put  aside,  but  can 
be  answered  only  after  careful  investigation,  whether  there 
is  any  knowledge  that  is  independent  of  experience,  and 
even  of  all  impressions  of  sense.  Such  knowledge  is  said 


German  Idealism  417 

to  be  a  priori,  to  distinguish  it  from  empirical  knowledge, 
which  has  its  sources  a  posteriori,  or  in  experience.  The 
term  a  priori  must,  however,  be  denned  more  precisely, 
in  order  that  the  full  meaning  of  our  question  may  be  un- 
derstood. We  say  of  a  man  who  undermines  the  founda- 
tions of  his  house,  that  he  might  have  known  a  priori  that 
it  would  fall ;  by  which  we  mean,  that  he  might  have 
known  it  would  fall,  without  waiting  for  the  event  to  take 
place  in  his  experience.  But  he  could  not  know  it  com- 
pletely a  priori ;  for  it  is  only  from  experience  that  he 
could  learn  that  bodies  are  heavy,  and  must  fall  by  their 
own  weight  when  there  is  nothing  to  support  them.  By 
a  priori  knowledge  we  shall,  therefore,  in  what  follows, 
understand,  not  such  knowledge  as  is  independent  of  this 
or  that  experience,  but  such  as  is  absolutely  independent 
of  all  experience.  Opposed  to  it  is  empirical  knowledge, 
or  that  which  is  possible  only  a  posteriori,  that  is,  by  ex- 
perience. 

"  Evidently  what  we  need  is  a  criterion  by  which  to  dis- 
tinguish with  certainty  between  pure  and  empirical  knowl- 
edge. Now,  experience  can  tell  us  that  a  thing  is  so  and 
so,  but  not  that  it  cannot  be  otherwise.  Firstly,  then,  if 
we  find  a  proposition  that,  in  being  thought,  is  thought  as 
necessary,  it  is  an  a  priori  judgment;  and  if,  further,  it  is 
not  derived  from  any  proposition  except  which  is  itself 
necessary,  it  is  absolutely  a  priori.  Secondly,  experience 
never  bestows  on  its  judgments  true  or  strict  universality, 
but  only  the  assumed  or  comparative  universality  of  induc- 
tion; so  that,  properly  speaking,  it  merely  says,  that  so  far 
as  our  observation  has  gone,  there  is  no  exception  to  this 
or  that  rule.  If,  therefore,  a  judgment  is  thought  with 
strict  universality,  so  that  there  can  be  no  possible  excep- 
tion to  it,  it  is  not  derived  from  experience,  but  is  absolutely 
a  priori.  Necessity  and  strict  universality  are,  therefore, 
sure  criteria  of  a  priori  knowledge,  and  are  also  inseparably 
connected  with  each  other." 

Necessary  and  universal    judgments  go  beyond    expe- 

2£ 


41 8         A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

rience  —  so  far  Hume  and  Kant  are  agreed.  But  whereas 
Hume  had  stopped  here,  and  had  said  that  therefore  such 
judgments  do  not  exist  as  valid  knowledge,  Kant  adopts 
a  different  attitude.  We  cannot  explain  knowledge  by 
denying  its  reality;  if  there  are  universal  truths  which 
everybody  admits,  the  only  thing  to  do  is  to  accept  these  as 
our  data,  and  then  go  on  to  explain  their  possibility.  "  Now, 
it  is  easy  to  show  that  in  human  knowledge  there  actually 
are  judgments,  that  in  the  strictest  sense  are  universal,  and 
therefore  pure  a  priori.  If  an  example  from  the  sciences 
is  desired,  we  have  but  to  think  of  any  proposition  in  math- 
ematics ;  if  an  instance  from  common  sense  is  preferred, 
it  is  enough  to  cite  the  proposition  that  there  can  be  no 
change  without  a  cause.  To  take  the  latter  case,  the  very 
idea  of  cause  so  manifestly  implies  the  idea  of  necessary 
connection  with  an  effect,  that  it  would  be  completely  lost, 
were  we  to  derive  it,  with  Hume,  from  the  repeated  associa- 
tion of  one  event  with  another  that  precedes  it,  and  were 
we  to  reduce  it  to  the  subjective  necessity  arising  from  the 
habit  of  passing  from  one  idea  to  another."  1 

If,  then,  Hume's  sensationalism  were  the  end  of  the  mat- 
ter, it  would  be  utterly  out  of  the  question  for  us  to  say 
that  anything  must  be  so.  But  as  a  matter  of  fact  we  have 
two  sciences,  mathematics  and  physics,  in  which  such  neces- 
sary a  priori  judgments  are  constantly  made.  To  give 
up  the  splendid  results  of  science  is  impossible  ;  if,  there- 
fore, we  cannot  be  content  to  accept  a  theory  that  takes 
away  their  foundations,  we  must  search  further,  and  ask 
ourselves  what  conditions  are  required  to  serve  as  a  secure 
basis  for  these  results  which  every  one  admits.  How,  in 
other  words,  is  it  possible  to  pass  a  judgment  which  does 
not  simply  state  the  results  of  what  we  have  learned  in  the 
past,  but  which  adds  to  our  knowledge,  and  which  yet,  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  it  goes  beyond  what  we  have  already 

1  Critique  of  Pure  Reason,  Introduction.  Watson's  translation,  pp.  7-10 
(Henry  Holt  &  Co.). 


German  Idealism  419 

experienced,  can  be  said  to  be,  not  probably,  but  necessa- 
rily and  universally  true  ? 

But  now  a  more  important  consideration  remains. 
"  There  is  a  sort  of  knowledge  that  even  quits  the  field  of 
all  possible  experience,  and  claims  to  extend  the  range  of 
our  judgments  beyond  its  limits,  by  means  of  conceptions 
to  which  no  corresponding  object  can  be  presented  in  ex- 
perience. Now,  it  is  just  in  the  province  of  this  sort  of 
knowledge,  where  experience  can  neither  show  us  the  true 
path,  nor  put  us  right  when  we  go  astray,  that  reason  car- 
ries on  those  high  investigations,  the  results  of  which  we 
regard  as  more  important  than  all  that  understanding  can 
discover  within  the  domain  of  phenomena.  Nay,  we  are 
even  willing  to  stake  our  all,  and  to  run  the  risk  of  being 
completely  deluded,  rather  than  consent  to  forego  inquiries 
of  such  moment,  either  from  uncertainty,  or  from  careless- 
ness and  indifference.  These  unavoidable  problems,  set 
by  pure  reason  itself,  are  God,  freedom,  and  immortality, 
and  the  science  which  brings  all  its  resources  to  bear  on 
the  one  single  task  of  solving  them  is  metaphysic" 

"  Now,  one  might  think  that  men  would  hesitate  to  leave 
the  solid  ground  of  experience,  and  to  build  an  edifice  of 
truth  upon  knowledge  that  has  come  to  them  they  know 
not  how,  and  in  blind  dependence  upon  principles  of 
which  they  cannot  tell  the  origin,  without  taking  the 
greatest  pains  to  see  that  the  foundation  was  secure. 
One  might  think  it  only  natural  that  they  would  long  ago 
have  raised  the  question,  how  we  have  come  into  posses- 
sion of  all  this  a  priori  knowledge,  and  what  may  be  its 
extent,  its  import,  and  its  value.  But  the  fact  is,  that  a 
part  of  this  knowledge  —  mathematical  knowledge,  for 
instance  —  has  so  long  been  established  as  certain,  that 
we  are  less  ready  to  suspect  the  evidence  for  other  parts, 
although  these  may  be  of  a  totally  different  nature. 
Besides,  when  we  are  once  outside  the  circle  of  experi- 
ence, we  are  sure  not  to  be  contradicted  by  experience  ; 
and  so  strong  is  the  impulse  to  enlarge  our  knowledge, 


420        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

that  nothing  short  of  a  clear  contradiction  will  avail  to 
arrest  our  footsteps.  Now  such  contradiction  may  easily 
be  avoided,  even  where  we  are  dealing  with  objects  that 
are  merely  imaginary,  if  we  are  only  careful  in  putting  our 
fictions  together.  Mathematics  show  us,  by  a  splendid 
instance,  how  far  a  science  may  advance  a  priori  without 
the  aid  of  experience.  It  is  true  that  by  it  objects  and 
conceptions  are  considered  only  in  so  far  as  they  can  be 
presented  in  perception  ;  but  it  is  easy  to  overlook  the 
limitation,  because  the  perception  in  this  case  can  itself  be 
given  a  priori,  and  is  therefore  hard  to  distinguish  from  a 
mere  idea.  Deceived  by  this  proof  of  the  power  of  rea- 
son, we  can  see  no  limits  to  the  extension  of  knowledge. 
So  Plato  forsook  the  world  of  sense,  chafing  at  the  narrow 
limits  it  set  to  our  knowledge,  and,  on  the  wings  of  pure 
ideas,  launched  out  into  the  empty  space  of  the  pure  un- 
derstanding. He  did  not  see  that  with  all  his  efforts  he 
was  making  no  real  progress.  But  it  is  no  unusual  thing 
for  human  reason  to  complete  its  speculative  edifice  in  such 
haste  that  it  forgets  to  look  to  the  stability  of  the  founda- 
tion."1 

The  new  philosophy,  then,  as  opposed  to  all  previous 
thought,  is  fundamentally  a  critical  philosophy  ;  it  is  a 
criticism  of  the  faculty  of  knowledge.  In  the  past,  Meta- 
physics has  been  the  battle-ground  of  endless  conflicts. 
"  There  was  a  time  when  Metaphysic  held  a  royal  place 
among  the  sciences,  and,  if  the  will  were  taken  for  the 
deed,  the  exceeding  importance  of  her  subject  might  well 
have  secured  to  her  that  place  of  honor.  At  present  it  is 
the  fashion  to  despise  Metaphysic,  and  the  poor  matron, 
forlorn  and  forsaken,  complains  like  Hecuba,  Modo  max- 
ima renim,  tot  generis  natisque  potcns  —  mine  trahor  exul, 
inops.  At  first  the  rule  of  Metaphysic,  under  the  dominion 
of  the  dogmatists,  was  despotic.  But  as  the  laws  still  bore 
the  traces  of  an  old  barbarism,  intestine  wars  and  complete 
anarchy  broke  out,  and  the  sceptics,  a  kind  of  nomads, 

1  Critique  of  Pure  Reason,  Introduction  (Watson's  translation,  p.  ll). 


German  Idealism  421 

despising  all  settled  culture  of  the  land,  broke  up  from 
time  to  time  all  civil  society.  Fortunately  their  number 
was  small,  and  they  could  not  prevent  the  old  settlers  from 
returning  to  cultivate  the  ground  afresh,  though  without 
any  fixed  plan  or  agreement.  At  present,  after  every- 
thing has  been  tried,  so  they  say,  and  tried  in  vain,  there 
reign  in  philosophy  weariness  and  complete  indifferentism, 
the  mother  of  chaos  and  night."  * 

The  trouble  lies  in  the  very  nature  of  dogmatism.  It  is 
due  to  the  attempt  of  reason  to  advance  without  any  previ- 
ous criticism  of  its  own  powers.  Such  a  dogmatic  employ- 
ment of  reason  can  lead  only  to  groundless  assertions,  to 
which  other  assertions  equally  specious  may  always  be 
opposed,  the  inevitable  result  being  scepticism.  The 
same  defect,  accordingly,  taints  dogmatism  and  scepticism 
alike  ;  the  only  remedy  is,  neither  to  dogmatize,  nor  to 
raise  equally  ungrounded  doubts,  but  to  subject  the  nature 
of  reason  to  a  sober  investigation,  in  order  to  determine 
what  it  can,  and  what  it  cannot,  hope  to  accomplish.  This 
is  entirely  different  from  scepticism.  Hume  "ran  his  ship 
ashore  for  safety's  sake  on  scepticism,  whereas  my  object 
is  rather  to  give  it  a  pilot,  who,  by  means  of  safe  astro- 
nomical principles,  drawn  from  a  knowledge  of  the  globe, 
and  provided  with  a  complete  chart  and  compass,  may 
steer  the  ship  safely."  2 

2.  How  are  Necessary  Judgments  Possible  ?  —  With  this 
general  introduction,  we  may  go  on  to  consider  in  what 
the  special  nature  of  Kant's  results  consists.  And  once 
more,  there  are  two  main  questions  which  he  sets  before 
himself.  The  first  is  to  show  the  conditions  which  render 
possible  those  synthetic,  a  priori  judgments,  whose  valid- 
ity, in  opposition  to  Hume,  he  proposes  to  defend.  The 
second  is  to  show  what  light  the  answer  to  this  problem 
will  throw  upon  the  validity  of  those  further  a  priori 
judgments,  which  pretend  to  carry  us  into  the  supersen- 
sible world,  and  upon  which  Metaphysics  has  relied  to 
1  Preface.  Max  Miiller's  translation.  2  Prolegomena,  Introd. 


422         A  Students  History  of  Philosophy 

prove  the  existence  of  God,  and  other  ultimate  truths. 
We  shall  consider  these,  therefore,  in  order. 

A  distinction  has  already  been  drawn  between  two  ele- 
ments of  our  experience.  In  addition  to  the  sense  mate- 
rial, to  which  Hume  had  reduced  all  the  conscious  life, 
there  must  also  be  certain  relating  activities  of  the  mind 
itself.  Necessary  and  a  priori  truths  must  evidently  de- 
pend upon  this  latter  factor.  "  That  element  in  the 
phenomenon  which  corresponds  to  sensation  I  call  the 
matter,  while  that  element  which  makes  it  possible  that 
the  various  determinations  of  the  phenomenon  should  be 
arranged  in  certain  ways  relatively  to  one  another,  is  its 
form.  Now,  that  without  which  sensations  can  have  no 
order  or  form,  cannot  itself  be  sensation.  The  matter 
of  a  phenomenon  is  given  to  us  entirely  a  posteriori,  but 
its  form  must  be  a  priori  in  the  mind,  and  hence  must  be 
capable  of  being  considered  by  itself  apart  from  sensation."  x 

Of  these  forms  of  experience,  there  are  two  sorts.  In 
the  first  place,  the  sensuous  basis  of  experience  does  not 
come  to  us  as  absolutely  raw  material ;  it  has  already  been 
actively  shaped  by  the  mind.  It  presents  itself  in  sense 
perception  as  already  related  in  two  ways  —  in  space  and  in 
time.  It  is  on  these  "  forms  of  sensibility  "  that  the  possi- 
bility of  geometrical  truths  rests.  A  long  time  before  he 
reached  the  final  standpoint  represented  in  the  Critique 
of  Pure  Reason,  Kant  had  come  to  the  conclusion,  by 
means  of  arguments  which  it  is  unnecessary  to  reproduce, 
that  space  and  time  are  not  objective  realities,  but  only 
the  subjective  ways  in  which  we  cognize  realities  which 
in  themselves  are  non-spatial  and  non-temporal. 

But  now,  for  the  orderly  experience  which  we  know, 
it  is  not  enough  that  the  sensuous  data  should  appear  simply 
in  the  forms  of  space  and  time.  Within  that  framework 
->  they  must  be  subjected  to  other  —  intellectual  —  relation- 
ships, in  order  to  make  a  world  of  definite  things.  What, 
then,  are  the  essential  intellectual  elements,  which  go-  to 

1  Critique  of  Pure  Reason,  p.  20  (First  Ed.). 


German  Idealism  423 

make  up  experience?  Without  following  Kant  into  the 
details  of  this  deduction,  it  is  enough  to  say  that,  by  a 
laborious  process,  he  arrives  at  a  certain  number  of  these, 
which  he  groups  under  four  heads  —  quantity,  quality, 
relation,  and  modality.  We  can  say,  that  is,  necessarily 
and  universally,  quite  prior  to  experience,  that  any  par- 
ticular experience  will  be  quantitative ;  that  it  will  possess 
a  certain  degree  of  intensity ;  that  every  change  involves 
a  permanent  substance  as  a  background ;  that  all  changes 
take  place  in  accordance  with  the  law  of  cause  and  effect ; 
and  so  forth. 

But  how,  once  more,  is  it  possible  to  pass  such  judg- 
ments that  go  beyond  experience  ?  The  answer  is,  in  brief  : 
because  otherwise  experience  itself  would  be  impossible. 
The  necessity  lies,  not  in  things,  but  in  ourselves.  "  In 
metaphysical  speculations  it  has  always  been  assumed  that 
all  our  knowledge  must  conform  to  objects;  but  every 
attempt  from  this  point  of  view  to  extend  our  knowledge 
of  objects  a  priori  by  means  of  conceptions  has  ended  in 
failure.  The  time  has  now  come  to  ask,  whether  better 
progress  may  not  be  made  by  supposing  that  objects  must 
conform  to  our  knowledge.  Plainly  this  would  better  agree 
with  the  avowed  aim  of  metaphysic,  to  determine  the  nature 
of  objects  a  priori,  or  before  they  are  actually  presented. 
Our  suggestion  is  similar  to  that  of  Copernicus  in  astron- 
omy, who,  finding  it  impossible  to  explain  the  movements 
of  the  heavenly  bodies  on  the  supposition  that  they  turned 
round  the  spectator,  tried  whether  he  might  not  succeed 
better  by  supposing  the  spectator  to  revolve,  and  the  stars 
to  remain  at  rest.  Let  us  make  a  similar  experiment  in 
metaphysic  with  perception.  If  it  were  really  necessary 
for  our  perception  to  conform  to  the  nature  of  objects,  I 
do  not  see  how  we  could  know  anything  of  it  a  priori ;  but 
if  the  sensible  object  must  conform  to  the  constitution 
of  our  faculty  of  perception,  I  see  no  difficulty  in  the 
matter."  1 

1  Preface.     Watson's  translation. 


424         A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

Such  is  Kant's  own  statement  of  the  matter ;  it  may  be 
well,  however,  to  consider  somewhat  more  carefully  just 
what  he  means.  Kant  finds  the  necessity  he  is  in  search 
of,  to  repeat,  not  as  something  in  nature,  which  is  then 
reproduced  and  known  in  our  experience,  but  as  some- 
thing in  experience  which  itself  constitutes  what  we  know 
as  nature.  He  reached  this  conclusion  in  the  following 
way :  Suppose  we  take  a  geometrical  truth ;  how  can  we 
say,  absolutely  and  without  exception,  that  the  sum  of  the 
angles  of  any  triangle  will  equal  two  right  angles  ?  So 
long  as  it  is  a  matter  simply  of  our  mental  content,  or 
meaning,  a  perception  of  certain  abstract  spatial  relation- 
ships, we  might  get  certainty  by  the  mere  fact  of  holding 
steadfastly  to  one  fixed  meaning,  and  not  allowing  it  to 
change  or  become  confused.  But  how  do  we  know  that 
the  world  of  actual  things  will  conform  to  these  geometrical 
ideals  of  ours  ?  Not  from  experience ;  that  might  tell  us 
that  the  proposition  was  true  of  all  the  objects  we  had  ex- 
amined in  the  past,  but  not  that  it  would  prove  to  be  true 
of  the  next  one  we  might  happen  to  meet.  Things  can 
only  come  into  our  experience  one  by  one ;  and  by  this 
process,  we  can  only  tell  the  facts  about  the  particular 
cases  we  have  run  across  up  to  date,  not  about  the  rest, 
which  as  yet  have  not  come  into  contact  with  us.  The 
necessity,  that  is,  in  so  far  as  we  can  talk  of  necessity,  can- 
not lie  in  reality  as  it  exists  in  itself,  apart  from  our  ex- 
perience ;  for  since  we  cannot  grasp  the  whole  of  infinite 
reality  at  once,  and  since  it  is  the  conviction  of  a  necessary 
connection  in  our  experience  that  is  to  be  justified,  the 
coming  of  reality  piecemeal  into  experience  gives  us  no 
ground  for  asserting  anything  whatever  of  that  which  still 
is  left  outside.  What  follows,  then  ?  Simply  this,  once 
more  :  that  if  we  grant  the  validity  of  necessary  judgments 
at  all,  it  must  be  founded  on  the  nature  of  our  experience, 
not  on  the  nature  of  an  external  reality.  Things,  that  is, 
must  follow  the  laws  of  mathematics,  because  they  can  only 
become  things,  for  us,  by  taking  on  that  same  spatial  form 


German  Idealism  425 

on  which  the  truths  of  geometry  are  based.  They  must 
conform  to  the  structure  of  the  mind  whose  nature  it  is  to 
cast  everything  into  spatial  relationships,  before  they  can 
become  actual  objects  of  our  knowledge.  If,  then,  our 
experience  is  of  such  a  nature  that  nothing  can  enter  into 
it  without  taking  on  a  particular  form,  then  we  can  say, 
with  certainty,  that  everything,  in  the  future  as  well  as  in 
the  past,  must  have  just  this  form  and  no  other.  We  can 
pass,  in  other  words,  a  necessary,  synthetic  judgment  a 
priori ;  and  on  no  other  condition  can  we  do  so.  No  mat- 
ter what  may  be  true  of  reality  beyond  experience,  we  can 
be  perfectly  sure  that,  for  us,  everything  in  experience  will 
correspond  to  geometrical  truths,  because,  unless  it  suc- 
ceeds in  taking  on  the  spatial  form  on  which  geometry 
rests,  it  will  not  become  part  of  our  experience  at  all,  but 
will  remain  for  us  non-existent. 

In  just  the  same  way,  we  are  to  account  for  those  other 
necessary  judgments  —  the  intellectual  ones.  How  can 
we  be  sure,  for  example,  that  every  effect  must  have  a 
cause,  or  that  there  must  always  be  a  permanent  substance 
underlying  change  ?  Simply  because  our  intellectual 
machinery  is  so  constituted  that  it  will  take  no  grist 
which  does  not  adapt  itself  to  these  particular  forms  of 
substance  and  causality.  A  necessary  judgment  is  pos- 
sible, for  the  reason  that  we  are  not  judging  about  things 
in  themselves,  but  about  the  necessary  connection  of  ele- 
ments in  our  own  experience  ;  and  we  could  have  nothing 
that  it  would  be  possible  to  call  experience,  if  it  were  not 
for  certain  necessary  forms  of  relationship  between  the 
elements  of  which  it  is  constituted.  In  other  words,  if 
I  am  to  be  an  intelligent  being,  and  have  an  experience 
which  also  is  intelligible,  this  experience  must  be  to  a  cer- 
tain degree  coherent.  If  it  is  to  be  my  experience,  it  must 
be  a  unity  ;  I  must  somehow  be  present  through  it  all,  bind- 
ing its  parts  together  into  a  whole.  It  cannot  be  a  simple 
string  of  feelings  succeeding  one  another  in  time,  for  such 
a  series  would  have  no  knowledge  of  itself  as  a  unity. 


426        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

It  is  the  "  I "  which  binds  these  feelings  together  by 
threads  of  intellectual  relationships,  which  are  not  them- 
selves a  part  of  the  series  at  all.  This  coherency  in  my 
life  does  not  merely  imply  the  existence  of  groups  of  fleet- 
ing sensations ;  it  necessitates,  also,  that  I  should  be  able 
to  recognize  these,  and  so  that  they  should  stand  for  objects 
that  are  identical  and  permanent ;  and  a  permanent  object 
already  involves  the  category  of  substantiality.  Then, 
too,  the  different  objects,  if  they  are  to  form  part  of  a 
single  experience,  must  be  reciprocally  connected  with 
one  another,  as  members  of  a  common  world ;  and,  again, 
the  past  and  future  must  have  some  intelligible  and  neces- 
sary relation,  since  they  also  are  parts  of  a  single  experi- 
ence, in  every  point  of  which  I  find  myself  equally  present : 
and  so  we  need  the  categories  of  reciprocity  and  causality, 
as  tools  which  the  self  necessarily  requires,  to  help  it  unify 
its  life.  Beyond  our  experience  these  categories  may  not 
apply ;  but  since  it  is  only  such  elements  of  reality  as  will 
fit  the  mould  in  which  our  intellectual  nature  is  cast,  that 
in  any  wise  concern  us,  we  can  take  the  laws  as  absolute. 
It  is  not,  then,  nature  which  imposes  its  necessity  on  us, 
but  it  is  we  who  give  laws  to  nature.  The  truths  of  the 
rationalist  are  not  revelations  of  existence  beyond  ;  they 
show,  instead,  our  own  intellectual  make-up.  They  are  the 
forms  of  experience,  as  over  against  its  content. 

It  will  be  evident  that,  against  this  view,  Locke's  criticism 
of  innate  ideas  has  no  force.  We  have,  says  Locke,  no  in- 
nate idea  of  causality,  e.g.,  because  many  people  have  never 
in  their  lives  thought  of  the  proposition  that  every  effect 
must  have  a  cause.  Now  Kant  also  would  admit  this.  If 
we  mean  the  conscious  recognition  of  the  principle,  that  is  a 
particular  psychological  fact  in  our  minds,  which  may  arise 
only  late  in  life,  or  conceivably  never  at  all.  But  in  another 
sense  —  as  a  form  of  thought  —  the  principle  has  been  at 
work  from  the  very  start.  Every  time  I  look  to  find  the 
explanation  of  something  that  has  happened,  every  time 
I  connect  two  things  together,  I  am  implicitly  making  use 


German  Idealism  427 

of  the  causal  relation.  And  it  is  this  existence  which  it 
has  as  a  form  of  synthesis,  not  the  conscious  recognition 
which  may  or  may  not  be  attained  by  any  particular  indi- 
vidual, whose  a  priori  character  Kant  is  vindicating. 

3.  No  Knowledge  beyond  .Experience. — The  Critical 
Philosophy,  then,  is  an  attempt  to  get  at  the  necessary 
elements  in  experience — necessary  because  apart  from 
them  experience  itself  would  toe  an  impossibility.  Only  in 
this  way,  Kant  holds,  can  the  validity  of  a  priori  judg- 
ments be  vindicated.  To  put  the  problem  in  a  different 
form,  Kant  has  been  trying  to  discover  how  it  is  that  our 
ideas  can  come  to  apply  to  the  real  world.  And  the  an- 
swer is,  that  these  real  things  are  themselves  constituted 
by  the  relationships  which  make  up  knowledge.  It  is 
needful  to  keep  constantly  in  mind  this  new  conception  of 
the  nature  of  objectivity  and  reality.  The  world  of  which 
Kant  is  talking  is  nothing  but  the  world  of  human  ex- 
perience, the  world  as  it  forms  a  part  of  the  content  of 
our  system  of  knowledge.  When  Kant  says  that  our 
thought  constitutes  nature,  he  does  not  mean,  therefore, 
that  the  great  fabric  of  reality  which,  in  our  ordinary  way 
of  viewing  the  world,  we  think  of  as  existing  eternally, 
and  as  forming  the  ground  out  of  which  we,  as  transient 
beings,  have  sprung,  first  gains  the  right  to  be  by  coming 
under  subjection  to  certain  rules  which  our  mind  imposes ; 
that  we  create  all  that  is,  as  the  subjective  idealist  might 
maintain.  To  the  "objective  world  "in  this  sense  —  the 
eternal  and  fundamental  background,  which  we  are  ready 
to  believe  exists  alongside  and  beyond  our  transient  human 
experience  —  he  has  so  far  no  reference  at  all.  When 
Kant  speaks  of  experience,  and  of  the  objective  world  as 
an  element  in  experience,  it  is  definitely  human  experience 
that  he  means.  But  now  Kant  also  does  not  doubt  that 
beyond  this  lies  a  more  ultimate  reality,  on  which  human 
experience  is  based.  Of  this  ultimate  world,  accordingly, 
the  world  of  things  in  themselves,  what  have  we  to  say  ? 

And  here  we  have  reached  the  sphere  of  metaphysics, 


428         A   Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

whose  validity  we  set  out  to  examine.  Philosophy  is  not 
content  with  the  series  of  endless  conditions  presented  by 
phenomena  in  space  and  time.  It  tries  to  get  back  of  this 
infinite  regress,  to  the  ultimate  unconditioned  reality,  on 
which  finite  things  depend;  and  thus  to  furnish  a  basis 
for  those  ideas  which  are  the  final  goal  of  human  thought 
—  God,  freedom,  immortality.  So,  back  of  the  changing 
content  of  human  experience,  it  postulates  a  unitary  sub- 
stantial soul.  The  infinite  world  process  it  tries  to  grasp 
as  a  whole.  And,  finally,  the  totality  of  existence,  self  and 
world,  it  attempts  to  make  conceivable  by  the  concept  of 
God.  Is  now  this  attempt  to  understand  in  final  and 
absolute  terms  the  nature  of  real  existence  feasible  and 
fruitful  ? 

Kant  answers  that  it  is  not.  The  phenomenal  world  we 
know.  But  the  real,  the  noumenal,  world  is  closed  to  our 
theoretical  understanding.  And  the  reason  is  found  in  the 
nature  of  knowledge.  The  Rationalists  had  supposed  that 
thought  is  an  independent  faculty,  able  to  reach  truth  by 
its  own  unaided  exercise.  For  Kant,  on  the  contrary,  it  is 
only  one  element  or  aspect  of  knowledge.  For  any  con- 
crete act  of  knowledge,  thought  and  sense  are  both  alike 
required ;  and  it  is  this  indissoluble  connection  of  thought 
with  the  material  of  sense,  that  defeats  the  claims  of 
Rationalism  to  grasp  reality.  Sense  material  alone  is 
blind  and  unordered ;  it  is  not  experience  at  all  in  an 
objective  sense.  But  thought  also  by  itself  is  empty,  a 
mere  form,  which  requires  a  content  before  it  is  objectively 
valid. 

When,  accordingly,  we  attempt  to  apply  the  categories 
of  the  understanding  beyond  the  data  of  things  in  time 
and  space  —  beyond  the  merely  phenomenal  world  —  we 
are  involved  in  inevitable  illusion.  To  endeavor,  by  means 
of  ideas  which  thus  apply  only  to  the  conditioned  objects 
within  experience,  to  pass  to  an  unconditioned  whole,  is 
clearly  to  leave  experience  behind,  and  the  concrete  sense 
filling  which  makes  experience  possible ;  and,  in  conse- 


German  Idealism  429 

quence,  the  validity  of  our  categories  at  once  lapses.  An 
idea,  for  example,  like  that  of  causation,  whose  whole 
function  it  is  to  bind  together  the  elements  of  the  else 
chaotic  and  unordered  world  of  particulars,  can  never  take 
us  beyond  the  flux  of  finite  and  changing  events  to  a  self- 
complete  and  uncaused  absolute.  "  The  light  dove,  pierc- 
ing in  her  easy  flight  the  air,  and  perceiving  its  resistance, 
imagines  that  flight  would  be  easier  still  in  empty  space." 
The  effort  is  hopeless.  Of  the  nature  of  things  in  them- 
selves we  must  always  remain,  therefore,  intellectually  at 
least,  in  complete  ignorance. 

Kant,  accordingly,  goes  on  to  examine  these  ideas  in 
connection  with  which  philosophers  had  supposed  they 
could  get  a  knowledge  of  ultimate  reality,  and  to  point  out 
the  flaws  and  inconsistencies  which  they  reveal.  The  mere 
abstract  unity  of  consciousness,  which  alone  the  fact  of 
experience  necessitates,  has  no  point  of  contact  with  the 
substantial  soul  of  metaphysics,  all  of  whose  qualities, 
nevertheless,  are  derived  from  it,  of  course  quite  illegiti- 
mately. So  when  we  attempt,  in  reasoning  about  the 
external  world,  to  escape  from  the  conditioned  series  of 
causes  and  effects,  the  illegitimacy  of  our  endeavor  ap- 
pears in  the  antinomies  into  which  we  fall.  With  equal 
force  we  may  argue  that  the  world  is  limited  in  time  and 
space,  and  that  it  is  unlimited ;  that  every  compound  sub- 
stance in  the  world  consists  of  simple  parts,  and  that  no 
compound  thing  consists  of  simple  parts  ;  that  there  does, 
and  that  there  does  not,  exist  an  absolute  First  Cause  at 
the  end  of  the  finite  series.  The  arguments  on  both  sides, 
so  Kant  thinks,  are  logically  sound ;  and  the  fact  that  they 
yet  refute  each  other,  shows  that  we  have  entered  a  realm 
where  we  do  not  belong,  and  where,  in  the  nature  of  the 
case,  truth  is  not  to  be  attained  by  logic.  "  Both  parties 
beat  the  air  and  fight  with  their  own  shadows,  because  they 
go  beyond  the  limits  of  nature,  where  there  is  nothing  they 
can  lay  hold  of  with  their  dogmatical  grasp.  They  may 
fight  to  their  heart's  content ;  the  shadows  which  they  are 


430        ^  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

cleaving  grow  together  again  in  one  moment,  like  the  he- 
roes in  Valhalla,  in  order  to  disport  themselves  once  more 
in  these  bloodless  contests."1  So,  finally,  of  the  idea  of 
God.  The  ordinary  arguments  for  God's  existence  —  the 
ontological  argument,  the  argument  from  causation,  and 
the  argument  from  design  —  are  critically  examined,  and 
found  to  be  inadequate.  Starting  from  a  set  of  particular 
finite  facts,  which  enter  into  an  infinite  series  of  relation- 
ships with  other  facts,  it  is  quite  impossible  to  rise  to  the 
knowledge  of  their  absolute  and  unconditioned  ground. 
The  ideas  by  which  we  attempt  to  go  beyond  the  particu- 
lar facts,  are  intended  to  apply  only  to  relations  between 
these  facts. 

So  much  for  these  "Ideas  of  Reason" —  God,  the  uni- 
verse, the  soul —  on  the  negative  side.  They  tell  us  nothing 
of  ultimate  truth,  because  they  have  abandoned  the  facts  of 
sense  experience,  with  reference  to  which  alone  the  thought 
forms  have  validity,  and  knowledge  is  possible.  All  our 
wrangling  about  such  questions  arises  "  simply  from  our 
filling  the  gap,  due  to  our  ignorance,  with  paralogisms  of 
reason,  and  by  changing  thoughts  into  things  and  hyposta- 
sizing  them.  On  this  an  imaginary  science  is  built  up, 
both  by  those  who  assert  and  those  who  deny,  some  pre- 
tending to  know  about  objects  of  which  no  human  being 
has  any  conception,  while  others  make  their  own  represen- 
tations to  be  objects,  all  turning  round  in  a  constant  circle 
of  ambiguities  and  contradictions.  Nothing  but  a  sober, 
strict,  and  just  criticism  can  free  us  from  this  dogmatical 
illusion,  which,  through  theories  and  systems,  deceives  so 
many  by  an  imaginary  happiness.  It  alone  can  limit  our 
speculative  pretensions  to  the  sphere  of  possible  experi- 
ence, and  this  not  by  a  shallow  scoffing  at  repeated  failures, 
or  by  pious  sighs  over  the  limits  of  our  reason,  but  by  a 
demarcation  made  according  to  well-established  principles, 
writing  the  nihil  ulterius  with  perfect  assurance  on  those 
Herculean  columns  which  Nature  herself  has  erected,  in 

1  Critique  of  Pure  Reason,  p.  756.     Miiller's  translation. 


German  Idealism  431 

order  that  the  voyage  of  our  reason  should  be  continued 
so  far  only  as  the  continuous  shores  of  experience  extend 
—  shores  which  we  can  never  forsake  without  being  driven 
on  a  boundless  ocean,  which,  after  deceiving  us  again  and 
again,  makes  us  in  the  end  cease  all  our  laborious  and 
tedious  endeavors  as  perfectly  hopeless."1 

But  are  these  ideas,  then,  pure  illusions  ?  If  they  are, 
how  does  it  happen  that  the  human  mind  ever  swings  back 
to  them,  and  finds  in  them  a  perennial  charm  ?  Kant  goes 
on  to  show,  in  conclusion,  that  there  is  a  relative  value  and 
validity  which  the  ideas  possess.  They  are  not  merely 
arbitrary  ;  they  stand  for  an  impulse  which  is  ineradicable. 
The  desire  to  grasp  things  as  a  whole  is  one  which  the 
reason  can  never  forego ;  but  since  this  aim  is  incapable 
of  being  attained,  the  value  of  the  ideas  can  only  be  a  reg- 
ulative value  within  experience,  not  one  that  is  consti- 
tutive, and  that  results  in  objective  knowledge.  They 
stand  as  an  ideal  toward  which  knowledge  is  directed, 
and,  by  keeping  constantly  before  the  mind  the  fact  that 
any  particular  synthesis  of  knowledge  is  still  imperfect, 
they  remind  us  that  we  must  not  stop  content,  as  if  we  had 
already  reached  the  goal.  But  this  ideal  of  a  perfect  unity 
is  one  which,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  lies  forever  beyond  our 
reach. 

4.  Freedom  and  God  as  Postulates  of  the  Moral  Life. — 
So  far,  then,  this  is  the  result  of  the  Critical  Philosophy ; 
is  it  possible  to  rest  satisfied  with  it  ?  Certainly  it  seems 
to  do  away  with  all  that  knowledge  which  has  been  consid- 
ered most  desirable  in  philosophy.  The  very  conception 
of  a  noumenal  world,  beyond  the  confines  of  our  human 
experience,  is  no  more  than  problematical  —  a  mere  x,  to 
which  no  object  corresponds.  But  still,  so  Kant  thinks, 
there  is  a  real  gain.  If  we  cannot  prove  the  existence  of 
a  God,  we  have  at  least  shut  off  all  possibility  of  disproving 
him.  If  our  knowledge  is  only  phenomenal,  reason  can 
have  no  more  right  to  deny  that  such  a  reality  exists,  than 
*  Ibid.,  p.  395. 


432         A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

to  affirm  it ;  and  the  attempt  to  base  a  positive  denial  of 
supersensuous  realities  —  as  materialism,  e.g.,  does  —  on 
the  supposed  validity  of  our  sense  experience,  is  put  out  of 
the  question.  "  I  cannot  share  the  opinion,  so  frequently 
expressed  by  excellent  and  thoughtful  men,  who,  being 
fully  conscious  of  the  weakness  of  the  proofs  hitherto  ad- 
vanced, indulge  in  a  hope  that  the  future  would  supply  us 
with  evident  demonstrations  of  the  two  cardinal  proposi- 
tions of  pure  reason,  namely,  that  there  is  a  God,  and  that 
there  is  a  future  life.  I  am  certain,  on  the  contrary,  that 
this  will  never  be  the  case.  But  there  is  the  same  apodic- 
tic  certainty  that  no  man  will  ever  arise  to  assert  the  con- 
trary with  the  smallest  plausibility,  much  less  dogmatically. 
For,  as  he  could  prove  it  by  means  of  pure  reason  only, 
he  would  have  to  prove  that  a  Supreme  Being,  and  that  a 
thinking  subject  within  us,  as  pure  intelligence,  is  impos- 
sible. But  whence  will  he  take  the  knowledge  that  would 
justify  him  in  thus  judging  synthetically  on  things  far  be- 
yond all  possible  experience?  We  may,  therefore,  rest  so 
completely  assured  that  no  one  will  ever  really  prove  the 
opposite,  that  there  is  no  need  to  invent  any  scholastic 
arguments." * 

We  cannot,  then,  by  the  use  of  the  abstract  logical  rea- 
son, attain  any  insight  into  the  world  of  supersensible 
realities.  But  now,  since  the  possibility  still  remains  that 
a  noumenal  reality  may  exist,  it  is  conceivable  that,  even 
though  we  never  can  attain  to  it  through  knowledge,  there 
yet  may  be  some  other  avenue  of  approach,  which  will 
enable  us,  if  not  to  know,  at  least  to  postulate  it.  Accord- 
ing to  Kant,  there  is  such  an  avenue  —  the  moral  will; 
and  in  the  Critique  of  Practical  Reason,  the  second  of  the 
trilogy  of  works  on  which  Kant's  chief  fame  rests,  he  goes 
on  to  modify  to  a  certain  extent  the  agnosticism  of  his  first 
Critique. 

The  advantages  of  our  determination  of  the  possibilities 
of  knowledge  show  themselves  not  least  in  connection 

1  Ibid.,  p.  741. 


German  Idealism  433 

with  the  problem  of  freedom.  If  the  categories  of  our 
thought  life  really  applied  to  the  noumenal  world,  there 
would  be  no  escape  from  determinism.  The  law  of  cau- 
sality demands  that  everything  to  which  it  applies  shall 
be  regarded  as  strictly  necessitated.  In  so  far  as  our  acts 
enter  into  the  course  of  the  world,  they  become  a  part  of 
that  causal  series  where  necessity  rules  ;  and  if  this  world 
were  the  real  and  the  only  world,  freedom  would  be  ex- 
cluded. But  now  if  above  the  phenomenal  world,  the  world 
of  natural  causation,  there  exists  the  possibility,  at  least, 
of  another  and  a  noumenal  realm,  we  have  a  means  of 
extricating  ourselves  from  the  deterministic  conclusion. 
From  one  side  —  the  empirical  —  an  event  might  be  strictly 
determined.  But  this  very  causal  relationship  might  itself 
have  its  source  in  a  higher  causality  —  a  causality  in  the 
intelligible  world  outside  the  temporal  series,  and  therefore 
itself  determining  phenomena,  instead  of  being  determined 
by  them. 

"  Among  the  causes  in  the  phenomenal  world,  there 
certainly  can  be  nothing  that  absolutely  and  from  itself 
could  cause  a  series  to  begin  to  be.  Every  act  that  pro- 
duces an  event  is,  as  a  phenomenon,  itself  an  event  or 
result,  which  presupposes  another  state  to  serve  as  cause. 
Everything  that  comes  to  be  is,  therefore,  merely  a  con- 
tinuation of  the  series,  and  nothing  that  begins  of  itself 
can  enter  into  the  series.  Hence  all  the  modes  in  which 
natural  causes  act  in  the  succession  of  time  are  them- 
selves effects,  for  which  there  must  again  be  causes  in  the 
series  of  time.  It  is  vain  to  seek  in  the  causal  connection 
of  phenomena  for  an  original  act,  by  which  something 
may  come  to  be  that  before  was  not." 

"  But,  granting  that  the  cause  of  a  phenomenal  effect  is 
itself  a  phenomenon,  is  it  necessary  that  the  causality  of 
its  cause  should  be  entirely  empirical  ?  May  it  not  be 
that,  while  every  phenomenal  effect  must  be  connected 
with  its  cause  in  accordance  with  laws  of  empirical  cau- 
sality, this  empirical  causality,  without  the  least  rupture  of 

2F 


434        -A  Students  History  of  Philosophy 

its  connection  with  natural  causes,  is  itself  an  effect  of  a 
causality  that  is  not  empirical,  but  intelligible  ?  May  the 
empirical  causality  not  be  due  to  the  activity  of  a  cause, 
which  in  its  relation  to  phenomena  is  original,  and  which, 
therefore,  in  so  far  as  this  faculty  is  concerned,  is  not  phe- 
nomenal, but  intelligible ;  although,  as  a  link  in  the  chain 
of  nature,  it  must  be  regarded  as  also  belonging  entirely 
to  the  world  of  sense  ? "  1 

It  is  conceivable,  then,  that  as  a  phenomenon  an  act 
may  be  strictly  necessary,  whereas,  in  its  reality,  as  it 
enters  into  the  noumenal  world,  it  is  self-determined  and 
free.  The  possibility  of  freedom  is  thus  not  excluded  ;  but 
have  we  any  reason  for  believing  in  its  actuality  ?  Briefly 
the  answer  is :  Yes ;  it  is  necessary  to  postulate  freedom 
and  an  intelligible  world,  in  order  to  satisfy  the  demands 
of  the  moral  law.  For  the  essence  of  the  moral  life  con- 
sists in  obedience  to  a  law  —  the  categorical  imperative  — 
which  pretends  to  be  absolute  and  universal.  It  is  an  obe- 
dience freed  from  all  intermixture  of  personal  interest  and 
self-gratification,  which  goes  back  simply  to  reverence  for 
the  law  as  such.  In  an  ethical  system  remarkable  for  its 
lofty  dignity  and  its  stern  rigor,  Kant  endeavors  to  estab- 
lish, in  all  its  strictness,  this  separation  between  moral 
action,  and  action  based  on  empirical  motives  and  desires. 
The  latter  forfeits  all  claim  to  moral  value ;  "  nothing  in 
the  whole  world,  or  even  outside  of  the  world,  can  possi- 
bly be  regarded  as  good  without  limitation,  except  a  good 
will."  "  Even  if  it  should  happen  that,  owing  to  special 
disfavor  of  fortune,  or  the  niggardly  provision  of  a  step- 
motherly nature,  this  will  should  wholly  lack  power  to 
accomplish  its  purpose,  then  like  a  jewel  it  would  still 
shine  by  its  own  light,  as  a  thing  which  has  its  whole  value 
in  itself.  Its  usefulness,  or  f ruitlessness,  can  neither  add 
nor  take  away  anything  from  its  value."2 

But  now,  in  its  very  nature,  the  moral  law  demands  the 

1  Critique  of  Pure  Reason,  p.  543.     Watson's  translation. 
*  Metaphysic  of  Ethics  (Abbott's  translation,  pp.  9,  10). 


German  Idealism  435 

actuality  of  freedom.  It  calls  upon  me  to  will  and  to  act 
unconditionally,  without  regard  to  any  considerations  save 
the  moral  "  ought "  ;  and  it  has  no  meaning  unless  what  I 
ought  to  do,  I  can  do.  Freedom  is  thus  the  absolute  pre- 
condition of  the  validity  of  the  moral  life.  But  since,  as  a 
part  of  the  phenomenal  world,  my  act  is  not  free,  there 
must  be  another  and  noumenal  realm,  within  which  it  has 
that  freedom  which  the  moral  life  demands.  The  escape 
from  determinism  does  not  lie  in  denying  to  my  particular 
empirical  acts  a  causal  explanation,  but  in  denying  the 
ultimate  validity  of  that  whole  world  in  which  causality  rules, 
in  favor  of  an  intelligible  world,  which  we  cannot,  indeed, 
know,  but  whose  existence  we  are  compelled  to  postulate. 

"  The  explanation  of  the  possibility  of  categorical  impera- 
tives, then,  is,  that  the  idea  of  freedom  makes  me  a  mem- 
ber of  the  intelligible  world.  Were  I  a  member  of  no 
other  world,  all  my  actions  would  as  a  matter  of  fact  always 
conform  to  the  autonomy  of  the  will.  But  as  I  perceive 
myself  to  be  also  a  member  of  the  world  of  sense,  I  can 
say  only,  that  my  actions  ought  to  conform  to  the  autonomy 
of  the  will."  J 

So  the  guarantee  of  that  intelligible  world,  the  realm 
of  freedom,  is,  not  knowledge,  but  the  immediate  realiza- 
tion of  the  claims  of  the  moral  law ;  it  is  practical,  rather 
than  theoretical.  The  abstract  reason,  which  the  Enlight- 
enment had  deified,  is  definitely  subordinated  to  a  moral 
faith.  "  Morality  requires  us  only  to  be  able  to  think  free- 
dom without  self-contradiction,  not  to  understand  it;  it  is 
enough  that  our  conception  of  the  act  as  free  puts  no  ob- 
stacle in  the  way  of  the  conception  of  it  as  mechanically 
necessary,  for  the  act  stands  in  quite  a  different  relation  to 
freedom  from  that  in  which  it  stands  to  the  mechanism  of 
nature.  From  the  critical  point  of  view,  therefore,  the 
doctrine  of  morality,  and  the  doctrine  of  nature,  may  each 
be  true  in  its  own  sphere ;  which  could  never  have  been 
shown  had  not  criticism  previously  established  our  una- 
1  Metafhysic  of  Morality  (Watson's  translation,  p.  255). 


436         A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

voidable  ignorance  of  things  in  themselves,  and  limited  all 
that  we  can  know  to  mere  phenomena.  I  have,  therefore, 
found  it  necessary  to  deny  knowledge  of  God,  freedom,  and 
immortality,  in  order  to  find  a  place  for  faith'' 1 

And  with  the  intelligible  world  postulated  to  justify  free- 
dom and  morality,  we  may  note,  briefly,  the  way  in  which 
Kant  uses  these  results,  somewhat  inconsequentially,  it 
might  seem,  to  get  back  those  very  realities  which  the  reason 
has  been  proved  incompetent  to  know.  Although  the  desire 
for  happiness  is  entirely  distinct  from  the  content  of  the 
moral  will,  yet,  as  man  belongs  to  the  phenomenal,  as  well 
as  to  the  intelligible  world,  happiness  must  have  a  place, 
for  him,  in  the  idea  of  the  highest  good,  which  thus  may 
be  defined  as  the  union  of  happiness  and  virtue.  And  since 
this  is  not,  and  cannot  be,  attained  in  the  present  world,  an 
endless  life  must  be  postulated  for  its  achievement,  or 
reality  will  no  longer  appeal  to  us  as  fully  and  completely 
rational.  And,  finally,  in  order  to  safeguard  this  moral 
order  of  the  world,  and  see  to  it  that  the  end  is  secured,  it 
is  necessary  to  conclude  to  the  existence  of  a  God.  Such 
a  God  is,  however,  purely  intelligible,  and  free  from  all 
intermixture  of  sense  content.  And  as,  consequently,  he 
comes  in  no  sort  of  competition  with  natural — phenomenal 
—  laws,  he  is  forever  beyond  the  reach  of  attacks  from 
scientific  materialism  or  scepticism. 

At  the  start,  mention  was  made  of  two  points  of  special 
significance  in  Kant's  philosophy ;  and  it  is  the  second  of 
these  points  at  which  we  have  now  arrived.  For  Kant, 
namely,  the  truths  of  the  intellect  are  subordinate  to  the 
truths  of  the  practical  will,  or  of  the  moral  insight ;  the 
spiritual  demands  of  life  have,  equally  with  scientific 
thought,  the  right  to  induce  belief,  and  in  the  end  their 
claim  is  even  the  more  fundamental  one.  The  special  out- 
come which  this  assumes  in  Kant  is  one  which,  since  his 
day,  has  come  to  be  adopted  very  widely  indeed.  It  is  the 
attitude  which  attempts  to  find  a  secure  place  for  religious 

1  Critique  of  Pure  Reason,  Preface  (Watson's  translation,  p.  6). 


German  Idealism  437 

ideals,  by  emphasizing  the  separation  between  these  and 
scientific  knowledge.  And  the  separation  can  be  effected 
by  insisting,  with  Kant,  upon  the  entirely  phenomenal 
character  of  the  world  which  knowledge  gives  us.  So  far 
as  our  human  understandings  are  able  to  penetrate,  we  can 
reach  no  more  than  conditioned  objects  in  space  and  time  ; 
science  and  its  laws  represent  here  the  final  word.  But 
we  are  more  than  thinking  beings.  And  if  we  once  recog- 
nize that  the  processes  of  thought  do  not  sum  up  in  any 
final  way  the  inner  nature  of  the  universe,  then  there  is 
left  the  possibility  of  a  realm  in  which  these  other  sides  of 
our  nature  may  find  a  refuge,  undisturbed  by  the  fear  of 
contradiction  from  reason.  It  is  true  that  we  must  people 
this  realm,  not  with  objects  of  knowledge  in  the  strict 
sense,  but  rather  with  ideals,  symbols,  constructs  of  the 
creative  imagination.  God  is  a  term  of  poetry,  not  of 
science.  But  though  we  cannot  suppose  that  these  ideals 
of  ours  are  in  any  sense  literal  copies  of  what  really  exists, 
still  we  may  have  faith  that  the  real  world  is  not  hostile  to 
our  aspirations,  but  rather  is  in  some  true  way  symbolized 
in  them  —  a  faith  which  the  scientific  reason  cannot  throw 
doubt  upon,  since  we  now  are  moving  in  a  sphere  to  which 
reason  cannot  hope  to  attain. 

We  are  left,  then,  with  a  gap  between  the  results  of 
reason 'and  the  postulates  of  the  spiritual  life.  Kant  him- 
self recognized  to  some  extent  the  unsatisfactoriness  of  this 
complete  separation,  and  in  a  third  work,  the  Critique  of 
Judgment,  he  tried  to  make  it  a  little  less  absolute.  There 
are  two  facts  in  particular  which  seem  to  suggest  that  the 
world  in  space  and  time,  and  the  ideal  world,  the  world  of 
purpose  and  meaning,  are  after  all  not  so  divorced  from 
one  another  as  the  previous  results  might  go  to  show.  In 
the  aesthetic  experience,  where  the  natural  world  shows 
itself,  alike  in  the  beautiful  object,  and  in  the  workings 
of  artistic  genius,  in  unconscious  harmony  with  the  ideal 
requirements  of  the  mind ;  and  in  the  biological  organism, 
where  we  find  ourselves  constrained  to  use  the  concept  of 


438        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

end,  or  teleology,  in  any  adequate  definition,  we  have  sug- 
gestions of  an  inner  unity  and  identity.  But  with  Kant 
these  facts,  though  they  are  suggestive,  do  not  lead  to  any 
real  reconstruction  of  his  position.  Such  judgments  still 
represent  no  objective  reality;  they  cannot  be  imported 
into  the  absolutely  real  world  in  their  human  form. 

A  criticism  of  Kant  cannot  be  attempted  here.  But  there 
is  one  distinction  to  which  attention  may  be  called  —  a  dis- 
tinction implied  in  his  contrast  between  God  as  an  object 
of  reason,  and  God  as  a  postulate.  What  Kant  has  most 
convincingly  shown  is,  that  God  cannot  be  demonstrated 
conclusively,  in  the  rationalistic  fashion,  by  merely  ex- 
tending the  use  of  the  abstract  categories  which  intro- 
duce order  into  our  experience.  But  even  though  we 
cannot  demonstrate  God,  it  is  possible  that  we  might 
attain  to  a  reasonable  belief  in  him  by  another  path. 
We  might  avail  ourselves  of  the  process  of  analogical 
reasoning ;  we  might,  that  is,  reach  a  probable  knowl- 
edge about  the  nature  of  the  real  world,  by  using  the 
analogy  of  the  human  self,  the  human  experience,  which 
we  know,  without  pretending  that  our  proof  possesses 
theoretical  necessity.  And  yet,  unless  we  subscribe  to  the 
rationalistic  prejudice,  which  Kant  shares,  that  nothing  is 
knowledge  unless  it  bears  the  stamp  of  certainty,  we  should 
still  be  moving  in  the  sphere  of  mind  and  of  the  intellectual 
processes.  The  use  of  the  analogy  will  no  doubt  be  backed 
by  other  than  theoretical  needs;  but  still  it  will  not  thereby 
be  cut  off  absolutely  from  the  life  of  reason. 

If,  then,  we  admit  that  reason  is  not  confined  to  the  field 
of  demonstration,  the  question  that  may  still  be  asked  is 
this  :  is  the  nature  of  the  human  self,  and  human  experi- 
ence, such  that  it  can  be  applied  intelligibly  and  without 
self-contradiction  to  the  idea  of  God  ?  Granted  that  our 
belief  in  God  is  probable  rather  than  demonstrative 
knowledge,  and  granted,  also,  that  it  cannot  be  used  to 
explain  the  particular  facts  of  the  world,  but  only  to  in- 
terpret its  general  nature,  is  it  still  not  possible  that  the 


German  Idealism  439 

idea  has  an  intelligible  content,  is  capable  of  being  thought 
by  the  human  mind  ?  This  is  a  question  to  which  Kant's 
answer  is  much  less  clear  and  convincing  than  it  might  be. 
That  science  and  its  laws  cannot  be  regarded  as  a  final 
statement  about  the  world,  that  there  is  possible  an  inner 
and  more  intimate  interpretation,  and  that  here  the  needs 
of  the  spiritual  life  have  a  right  to  play  their  part  in  deter- 
mining our  attitude —  to  have  shown  this,  may  be  regarded 
as  Kant's  most  solid  achievement.  In  what  terms  we 
have  a  right  to  talk  about  this  inner  reality,  and  in  what 
relation  it  stands  to  the  laws  of  the  phenomenal  world, 
are,  on  the  contrary,  questions  left  by  Kant  in  a  shape 
which  can  hardly  be  regarded  as  final 


LITERATURE 

Kant,  Chief  Works  :  Critique  of  Pure  Reason  (1781);  Prolegomena 
to  any  Future  Metaphysic  (1783);  Principles  of  the  Metaphysics  of 
Ethics  (1785);  Critique  of  Practical  Reason  (1788);  Critique  of 
Judgment  (1790)  ;  Religion  within  the  Bounds  of  Pure  Reason  (1794). 
Translations  :  Meiklejohn  (Critique  of  Pure  Reason)  ;  Max  Miiller 
(Critique  of  Pure  Reason)  ;  Watson  (Selections)  ;  Abbott  {Critique  of 
Practical  Reason*);  Bernard  {Critique  of  Judgment) ;  Mahaffy  and 
Bernard  (Prolegomena)  ;  Goerrvitz  (Dreams  of  a  Spirit  Seer)  ; 
Hastie  {Kanfs  Cosmogony')  ;  Carus  {Prolegomena') ;  Semple  {Meta- 
physic of  Ethics), 

Mahaffy  and  Bernard,  Paraphrase  and  Commentary. 

Stirling,  Text  Book  to  Kant. 

Wenley,  An  Outline  Introductory  to  Kanfs  Critique  of  Pure  Reason. 

Abbott,  Kanfs  Theory  of  Ethics. 

Caird,  Critical  Philosophy  of  Kant. 

Adamson,  Philosophy  of  Kant. 

Wallace,  Kant. 

Fischer,  Kant. 

Schurman,  Philosophical  Review,  1898,  1900. 

Schurman,  Kantian  Ethics  and  the  Ethics  of  Evolution. 

Watson,  Kant  and  his  English  Critics. 

Seth,  From  Kant  to  Hegel. 

Seth,  Scottish  Philosophy. 

Jackson,  Seneca  and  Kant. 


44°        A   Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

Stuckenberg,  Life  of  Kant. 

Sidgwick.  Lectures  on  the  Philosophy  of  Kant. 

Paulsen,  Immanuel  Kant. 

Everett,  Fichte's  Science  of  Knowledge. 

Watson,  Schellings  Transcendental  Idealism. 

Porter,  Kant's  Ethics. 

Morris,  Kanfs  Critique  of  Pure  Reason. 

Green,  Lectures. 


§  37.    The  Idealistic  Development.     Fichte  and 
Schelling 

I.  The  Idealistic  Development. —  In  order  to  understand 
the  point  of  view  of  the  development  of  Idealism  in 
Germany,  it  will  be  well  to  try  to  distinguish  two  differ- 
ent attitudes  that  may  be  adopted  with  reference  to  the 
term  '  thought,'  or  '  reason.'  We  may,  on  the  one  hand, 
regard  thought  as  the  work  of  some  individual  thinker. 
Thinking  thus  becomes  a  fact  of  psychology,  something 
distinct  from  other  realities  which  exist  alongside  of  it. 
And  this  conception  of  thought  as  '  thinking  '  is  a  natural, 
and  indeed  an  inevitable  one.  We  commonly  should  in- 
cline to  say  that  there  can  be  no  thought  which  some  one 
does  not  think.  Now  when  Kant  speaks  of  thought,  he 
certainly  has  at  times  this  in  his  mind  —  thought  as  a  way 
in  which  human  beings  conceive  the  world.  It  is  only  from 
this  standpoint  that  his  distinction  between  phenomena 
and  noumena,  and  his  consequent  agnosticism  with  refer- 
ence to  things  in  themselves,  have  any  basis.  It  is  only 
thought  as  human  thought,  that  can  differ  from  reality. 

But  meanwhile,  the  more  immediate  result  of  Kant's 
work  was  in  a  different  direction.  There  is  a  broader  way 
in  which  we  may  take  the  term  '  thought.'  We  may  think 
of  it,  namely,  on  the  side  of  its  content,  as  the  system  of 
rational  knowledge,  which  includes  all  that  is  capable  of 
being  known.  From  this  standpoint,  the  individual  thinker 
is  only  one  among  a  vast  number  of  objects  of  knowledge ; 
he  is  part  of  a  rational  universe  which  extends  far  beyond 


German  Idealism  441 

him.  This  attitude  also  is  to  be  found  in  Kant.  His 
criticism  of  knowledge  is  not,  or  does  not  intend  to  be,  a 
matter  primarily  of  psychology.  It  is  rather  a  logical  in- 
quiry into  knowledge  as  a  systematic  structure,  abstracted 
from  its  connection  with  particular  individuals.  It  attempts, 
that  is,  to  criticise  each  factor  in  knowledge  by  reference 
to  its  place  in  a  connected  rational  whole,  as  a  necessary 
element  in  a  wider  unity,  rather  than  by  reference  to  the 
relation  of  any  particular  man's  thought  to  an  external 
prototype. 

Now  it  is  this  second  attitude  which  is  adopted  by  the 
German  Idealists.  The  connection  of  thought  with  the 
psychological  human  self  is  almost  entirely  ignored.  The 
Self,  or  Ego,  means  for  the  Idealists  not  the  individual  '  me,' 
but  the  unitary  system  of  thought.  One  result  is  that 
things  in  themselves  immediately  drop  away.  The  dif- 
ficulties in  connection  with  the  thing-in-itself  are  evident. 
If  it  is  unknowable,  what  right  have  we  to  say  anything 
about  it  ?  Kant  had  tended  to  look  upon  it  as  the  cause  of 
our  sense  experience ;  but  causation  applies  only  within 
experience,  not  to  the  noumenal  world.  Why  not,  then, 
simply  let  it  drop  away  as  a  contradiction  in  terms,  which 
serves  absolutely  no  useful  end  ?  Do  we  consider  it  neces- 
sary in  order  to  furnish  the  content  of  knowledge  ?  But 
the  attempt  to  explain  knowledge  from  what  is  not  knowl- 
edge is  pure  dogmatism,  and  no  explanation  at  all ; 
whereas,  from  the  other  side,  as  Kant  has  shown,  things 
may  readily  be  explained  as  the  construction  of  thought, 
through  the  use  of  the  categories. 

Reality,  then,  is  the  reality  of  experience,  or  thought, 
and  not  something  that  lies  beyond.  And  the  problem  of 
philosophy  is  to  point  out  the  systematic  and  logically 
interdependent  character  of  thought.  The  starting-point  for 
this  development  was  the  gaps  left  in  Kant's  theory  of 
knowledge.  Kant's  endeavor,  as  we  have  seen,  had  been 
to  trace  back  all  experience  to  the  synthetic  unity  of  the 
self ;  but  he  had  failed  to  bring  about  a  complete  unifi- 


442        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

cation  of  this  experience.  In  the  first  place,  there  were 
the  two  factors  of  sensation  and  thought,  which  Kant  had 
assigned  to  different  sources,  and  so  made  partly  incom- 
patible with  one  another.  Similarly,  in  the  moral  world, 
there  was  almost  a  complete  break  between  the  moral  law, 
and  concrete  experience  ;  the  ethical  life,  and  the  life  of 
sensuous  impulse  and  desire.  On  a  larger  scale  was  the 
distinction  between  the  noumenal  and  the  phenomenal, 
the  theoretical  and  the  practical,  the  realm  of  freedom 
and  the  realm  of  necessity.  The  work  of  Kant's  imme- 
diate successors  had  to  do  with  healing  these  divisions,  and  * 
making  experience  one.  There  are  three  names  in  par- 
ticular—  Fichte,  Schelling,  and  Hegel  —  which  are  most 
closely  connected  with  this  later  development.  And  since 
the  ideas  of  chief  value  are  summed  up  in  Hegel's  work, 
the  first  two  of  these  may  be  dismissed  very  briefly. 

2.  Fichte.  — Johann  Gottlieb  Fichte  was  born  in  Lusatia 
in  1762.  His  acquaintance  with  Kant's  philosophy  turned 
the  current  of  his  life,  and  he  became  an  enthusiastic  dis- 
ciple of  the  great  thinker.  An  early  writing  which,  on 
its  first  appearance,  had  mistakenly  been  hailed  as  the 
work  of  Kant,  and  praised  as  such,  gave  him  an  imme- 
diate reputation ;  and  he  was  soon  recognized  as  the  only 
man  worthy  to  take  up  and  carry  on  Kant's  task.  As 
professor  at  Jena,  his  lectures  aroused  great  interest ;  but  a 
naturally  self-confident  and  aggressive  disposition  kept  him 
continually  in  trouble,  and  occasioned  at  last  the  loss  of 
his  position.  His  great  work  in  awakening  the  German 
people  to  the  need  of  patriotic  and  united  action  in  the 
wars  with  Napoleon  has  caused  his  name  to  be  remem- 
bered, in  his  own  country,  even  more  as  a  patriot  than  as 
a  philosopher. 

The  basis  of  Fichte's  philosophy  is  the  attempt  to  take 
seriously  Kant's  conception  of  the  unity  of  experience. 
If  reason  is  in  very  truth  one  in  all  its  operations,  it  ought 
to  be  possible  to  deduce  the  various  categories  from  a  single 
source,  instead  of  leaving  them,  as  Kant  did,  in  compara- 


German  Idealism  443 

tive  isolation.  Fichte  finds  this  source  in  the  pure 
activity  of  the  Ego,  an  activity  which  reflection  discovers 
to  be  involved  in  any  fact  of  knowledge  whatsoever,  even 
the  simplest  and  most  formal.  The  unity  of  the  self  in 
all  knowledge,  and  the  recognition  of  this  as  primarily  an 
act,  furnish  the  foundation  of  all  of  Fichte's  system.  In 
this  act,  as  Fichte  says,  the  Ego  posits  itself,  asserts  its 
own  existence. 

But  so  far  we  have  only  the  pure  unity  of  the  Ego.  In 
order  to  get  the  actual  world  of  experience,  into  which 
differences  enter  as  well  as  unity,  Fichte  has  to  take  two 
further  steps.  The  Ego  also  affirms  or  sets  up  a  not-self, 
or  object,  and  by  so  doing  it  establishes  a  check  or  limit  to 
the  self.  For  concrete  knowledge,  then,  the  self  and  the 
world  now  stand  mutually  limiting  each  other ;  and  yet, 
once  more,  they  both  go  back  to  the  same  source  —  the 
creative  activity  of  the  Ego. 

Fichte's  thesis  is,  then,  that  the  deepest  fact  in  the  uni- 
verse is  free  Spirit,  and  that  the  world  is  the  creation  of 
>  Spirit,  instead  of  being,  as  the  materialist  would  hold,  its 
\  source.  But  now  there  is  an  obvious  question  that  arises. 
XVhy  should  the  Ego  thus  set  up  an  external  world  to  limit 
itself  ?  Why  not  be  content  with  its  original  infinity  and 
indeterminateness  ?  The  answer  that  Fichte  gives  will 
bring  up  another  and  a  specially  characteristic  side  of  his 
philosophy.  Here  also  he  goes  back  to  Kant,  this  time  to 
Kant's  doctrine  of  the  supremacy  of  the  moral  will.  It  is 
because  man  is  fundamentally  an  active  moral  being,  that 
he  finds  it  necessary  to  set  up  an  outer  world.  For  the 
moral  life  implies  striving,  action ;  and  this  would  be  im- 
possible, if  the  will  were  simply  infinite  and  unlimited.  It 
must,  to  become  conscious  of  itself,  set  for  itself  a  limit, 
in  order  that  then  it  may  overcome  this  limit.  The  world 
is  the  stuff  of  moral  action,  the  material  which  the  will 
creates,  to  give  itself  a  field  for  its  endeavor.  "  Not  merely 
to  know,  but  according  to  thy  knowledge  to  do,  is  thy 
vocation."  The  answer  to  the  question  :  Do  things  exist  ? 


444        -A  Students  History  of  Philosophy 

resolves  itself  simply  into  this :  I  have  certain  duties  to  be 
fulfilled  by  means  of  certain  materials.  My  world  is  the  ob- 
ject and  sphere  of  my  duties,  and  absolutely  nothing  more. 

But  it  is,  then,  I  myself,  the  particular  individual,  Johann 
Gottlieb  Fichte,  who  created  the  world  I  seem  to  find  about 
me?  It  is  the  weakness  of  Fichte' s  system  that  his  start- 
ing-point, and  many  of  his  aguments,  seem  to  lead  to  this; 
but  undoubtedly  it  is  not  what  he  intends.  The  Absolute 
Ego  is  very  different  from  the  individual  self,  though  the 
relation  of  the  two  is  far  from  being  clear.  Apparently, 
the  Absolute  is  not  a  personal  God.  Rather  it  is  the  moral 
order  of  the  world,  which  works  in  and  through  the  appar- 
ently separate  striving  selves.  Such  a  "  moral  idealism  " 
has  a  counterpart,  without  the  metaphysical  groundwork, 
in  Matthew  Arnold's  "power  that  makes  for  righteous- 
ness," and  his  conception  of  conduct  as  the  greater  part  of 
life ;  while  in  Carlyle  the  essential  spirit  of  Fichte  is  even 
more  completely  reproduced. 

3.  Schelling. —  Apart  from  the  question  as  to  the  satis- 
factoriness  of  a  moral  ideal,  which  involves  the  setting  up 
of  a  world  simply  for  the  sake  of  knocking  it  down  again, 
Fichte's  philosophy  is  evidently  too  easy-going  in  its  treat- 
ment of  the  world  of  nature.  In  Schelling  (1/75-1854) 
this  side  of  the  philosophical  problem  again  assumes  an 
independent  importance,  though  with  no  very  solid  results. 
Schelling  started  in  as  a  disciple  of  Fichte,  but  the  same 
thing  happens  as  in  the  case  of  Fichte  and  Kant  —  the 
disciple  goes  beyond  his  master,  until  the  latter  finds  it 
necessary  to  repudiate  him.  The  feeling  that  the  world  of 
nature  needed  a  more  elaborate  treatment  than  was  given 
by  merely  postulating  it  as  the  material  of  the  moral  life 
—  a  feeling  fostered  by  Schelling's  connection  with  the 
Romantic  School  of  German  poetry  —  led  him  to  attempt 
such  a  treatment,  by  trying  to  point  out,  in  a  semi-poetical 
way,  the  traces  of  intelligence,  of  the  Idea,  in  natural  pro- 
cesses and  forms.  But  this  gives  rise  to  a  dualism  which 
threatened  to  pass  into  a  contradiction.  On  the  one  side, 


German  Idealism  445 

nature  is  taken  as  a  product  of  intelligence,  the  creation  of 
the  Ego ;  while  on  the  other,  intelligence,  in  man,  itself 
appears  as  the  highest  product  of  the  process  already 
working  in  nature.  Evidently  it  was  impossible  to  stop 
long  at  this  point.  It  was  necessary  to  find  some  unitary 
principle  to  account  for  the  origin  of  both  nature  and  in- 
telligence alike,  since  the  two  are  now  put  on  an  equality. 
And  as  a  consequence,  Schelling  soon  found  himself  led 
to  postulate  a  common  root,  in  which  the  differences  of 
the  two  lose  themselves  in  an  abstract  identity  —  a  posi- 
tion to  a  certain  extent  suggesting  that  of  Spinoza. 
From  this  abstraction  —  the  night,  as  Hegel  says,  in  which 
all  cows  are  black  —  it  was  of  course  impossible  to  get  the 
concrete  facts  of  experience  again.  Accordingly,  in  his 
later  philosophy,  which  took  successively  a  number  of 
forms,  Schelling  is  compelled  to  have  recourse  to  an  in- 
creasing mysticism.  This  later  philosophy  had,  however, 
but  little  influence ;  it  is  Hegel  who  takes  up  the  work 
which  Schelling  had  been  unable  to  carry  on. 

LITERATURE 

Fichte,  Chief  Works  :  Science  of  Knowledge  (1794)  ;  Science  of  Rights 
(1796);  Science  of  Ethics  (1798).  Translations:  Kroeger  (Science  of 
Knowledge,  Science  of  Ethics,  Science  of  Rights)  ;  Smith  (Popular 
Works). 

Schelling,  Chief  Work:  Transcendental  Idealism  (1800). 

Everett,  Fichte^s  Science  of  Knowledge. 

Adamson,  Fichte. 

Thompson,  The  Unity  of  Fichte }s  Theory  of  Knowledge. 

Watson,  Schelling's  Transcendental  Idealism. 

Seth,  Hegelianism  and  Personality. 

Seth,  From  Kant  to  Hegel. 

Leighton,  Typical  Modern  Conceptions  of  God. 

§  38.    Hegel 

Georg  Wilhelm  Friedrich  Hegel  was  born  at  Stuttgart 
in  1770.  More,  perhaps,  than  any  other  of  the  great  phi- 


446         A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

losophers,  his  personality  is  sunk  in  his  work,  so  that  out- 
side of  this  there  is  but  little  of  interest  in  his  life.  At 
Tubingen,  where  he  entered  in  1788,  he  came  in  contact 
with  the  group  of  young  men  of  which  Schelling  was  the 
leader  ;  and  to  him  he  attached  himself  as  a  disciple,  though 
Schelling  was  five  years  his  junior.  Among  his  associates 
he  was  regarded  as  a  hard  worker,  but  not  as  particularly 
brilliant.  With  Schelling,  he  founded  a  philosophical 
journal,  to  which  he  contributed  various  articles  in  defence 
of  the  Schellingian  philosophy.  But  meanwhile  he  was 
coming  to  realize  Schelling's  deficiencies,  and  was  pa- 
tiently working  out  the  thought  which  was  to  render  him 
an  independent  thinker.  He  broke  with  Schelling  by  the 
publication,  in  1807,  of  his  first  important  work,  the  Phe- 
nomenology of  Spirit,  in  which  the  weakness  of  Schell- 
ing's position  is  somewhat  sarcastically  criticised.  From 
this  time  on,  his  life  is  filled  with  the  laborious  working 
out  of  his  great  principle,  a  labor  which  left  him  no  time 
for  participation  in  the  stirring  political  events  that  were 
going  on  about  him.  His  success  was  soon  assured,  and 
he  passed  from  Nuremburg  to  Heidelberg,  and  from  Hei- 
delberg to  Berlin,  where  he  became  the  dictator  of  the 
German  philosophical  world.  He  died  in  1831. 

It  is  a  matter  of  great  difficulty  to  convey  a  clear  notion 
of  Hegel's  philosophy,  by  reason  not  only  of  the  inherent 
obscurities  which  have  given  rise  to  various  interpretations 
of  its  meaning,  but  also  because  of  its  extreme  subtilty,  and 
of  the  concrete  nature  of  its  content,  which  covers  the 
whole  field  of  experience  and  history.  The  following  ac- 
count, therefore,  will  have  to  be  very  general  in  its  nature. 

I.    The  General  Nature  of  Hegel's  Philosophy 

I.  Perhaps  we  may  get  a  starting-point  for  understand- 
ing Hegel's  main  thought  most  readily,  by  saying  that  it  is 
the  philosophical  expression  of  the  new  historical  sense. 
The  word  of  experience  is  a  progressive  embodiment 


German  Idealism  447 

of  reason.  Now  for  the  man  of  the  Enlightenment,  reason 
had  been  an  abstract  faculty,  existing  in  the  individual,  by 
means  of  which  he  was  able  to  decide,  affirmatively  or 
negatively,  such  questions  as  might  be  presented  to  him,  — 
the  existence,  e.g.,  of  God  or  of  matter,  the  obligatoriness 
of  moral  law,  the  foundation  of  justice  and  society,  or  what- 
ever it  might  be.  For  reason,  accordingly,  a  thing  was 
either  true  or  false,  and  that  was  all  there  was  to  say ;  and 
since  the  criterion  existed  within  the  individual  man,  he 
was  thus  capable  of  pronouncing  upon  the  Tightness  or 
wrongness  of  all  human  opinions  and  institutions  immedi- 
ately, on  abstract  theoretical  grounds. 

The  historical  method  has  changed  all  this.  Instead  of 
leading  us  to  judge  everything  by  the  particular  standard 
which  happens  to  appeal  to  us  as  rational,  it  says  :  A  thing 
is  to  be  judged  by  its  surroundings,  its  environment,  and 
the  part  within  this  which  it  has  to  play;  we  must  put 
ourselves  actually  in  the  place  of  the  reality  which  we 
wish  to  estimate.  In  other  words,  instead  of  reason  being 
an  external  criterion,  it  exists  only  as  embodied  in  the  phe- 
nomena of  experience  itself.  We  are  not  to  set  up  a  stand- 
ard of  our  own  by  which  to  judge  things ;  we  have  only 
to  watch  experience  unfold,  and  detect,  if  we  can,  the  laws 
involved  in  this  unfolding.  Reason  is  objective  in  things, 
not  subjective  in  ourselves.  Reality  exists,  and  that  reality 
reveals  itself  in  history.  It  is  our  part  to  accept  it  and  try 
to  discover  its  meaning,  not  to  condemn  or  praise.  A  thing 
is  condemned  only  by  the  logic  of  events ;  and  even  this 
means  only  that  it  no  longer  is  able  to  perform  its  func- 
tion, not  that  it  did  not  once  have  a  function  which  was  its 
sufficient  justification.  We  can  understand  reality,  there- 
fore, only  by  taking  it  in  all  its  concreteness,  not  by  mak- 
ing abstract  statements  about  it.  Philosophers  have  argued, 
perhaps,  that  there  is  a  God ;  but  of  what  value  is  such  an 
abstract  assertion  ?  It  has  no  meaning  until  we  give  it  a 
content,  and  that  content  is  nothing  less  than  the  concrete 
reality  of  life  and  history.  Unless  it  lies  wholly  apart  from 


448         A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

God,  this  is  a  manifestation  of  Him.  The  more  we  know 
of  it,  the  more  we  know  what  He  is;  and  the  less  we 
know,  the  less  we  know  Him. 

Now  Hegel's  contention  is  that  experience  is  such  a 
system  of  reason  with  its  own  laws ;  and  his  whole  phi- 
losophy is  an  endeavor  to  unfold  and  explicate  these.  This 
is  what  he  means  by  his  assertion  that  Thought  and  Reality 
are  identical.  This  statement  has  sometimes  been  taken 
to  mean,  either  that  our  individual  thoughts  are  the  sole 
reality,  or  that  reality  is  a  set  of  abstractions,  opposed  to 
all  sense  and  feeling  elements.  The  first  of  these  inter- 
pretations is  evidently  absurd,  and  Hegel  has  not  the  least 
intention  of  affirming  it,  although  the  relation  of  human 
thought  to  the  ultimate  Thought  involves  difficulties  which 
perhaps  he  does  not  sufficiently  consider.  Nor,  again,  does 
he  mean  that  reality  is  a  system  of  abstract  thought  con- 
cepts ;  for  him,  concrete  experience  is  the  starting-point 
and  the  end.  But  this  experience  is  rational  throughout. 
Every  element  of  experience  is  connected  by  relations  with 
a  rational  whole,  in  which  it  has  a  definite  place,  and  which 
enables  it  to  be  thought  understandingly.  Each  step 
exists  only  as  it  is  intelligibly  set  in  this  larger  frame- 
work ;  and  its  existence  and  its  intelligibility  are  one.  The 
reality  of  a  thing  is  just  its  possession  of  significance,  of 
meaning,  for  the  great  process  of  experience  into  which  it 
enters. 

And  so,  too,  reality  is  absolutely  coextensive  with  this 
system  of  significant  experience.  There  is  no  opaque 
thing-in-itself  lying  beyond  experience,  no  transcendent 
truth  to  be  reached  by  an  abstract  reasoning  process,  dis- 
tinct from  the  reason  that  is  in  things  themselves.  That 
which  does  not  enter  into  experience  is  for  us  nothing  at 
all.  The  system  of  experience  itself  is  reality,  is  God ; 
and  God  thus  is  the  most  certain  thing  in  the  world,  im- 
plicated in  the  existence  of  any  reality  whatsoever.  The 
course  of  history  is  the  process,  not  simply  by  which  man 
comes  to  a  consciousness  of  God  and  of  the  world,  but 


German  Idealism  449 

that  by  which  God  comes  to  a  consciousness  of  Himself. 
Spirit,  then,  and  the  laws  of  Spirit,  are  the  real  essence  of 
the  universe,  in  terms  of  which  everything  whatsoever  is  to 
be  understood.  We  have  no  need  to  go  out  of  our  experi- 
ence to  find  the  truth  of  reality.  Reality  is  present  in  this 
very  partial  experience  of  mine  ;  it  is  the  process  as  such, 
of  which  my  present  life,  and  the  life  of  each  individual, 
is  but  a  moment  or  stage. 

The  problem  of  philosophy  is,  then,  to  show  the  mean- 
ing of  each  factor  of  experience  that  has  ever  revealed 
itself  to  man,  through  its  relation  to  the  rational  whole  to 
which  it  belongs.  The  question  which  Kant  left  unsolved, 
—  the  question  how  the  various  parts  of  experience  fit  to- 
gether —  must  be  renewed ;  and  instead  of  leaving  these 
parts  in  opposition,  their  organic  relationship  must  be 
shown.  And  the  instrument  by  which  this  is  brought 
about  is  the  concept  of  development  —  a  development  in 
which  the  oppositions  and  contradictions  of  the  world  are 
not  denied  and  annulled,  but  combined  in  a  richer  whole, 
which  gives  them  each  a  relative  validity.  This  gives  the 
schema  of  Hegel's  dialectic  method  —  a  schema  of  three 
stages,  in  which  thesis  is  followed  by  antithesis,  and  that 
again  by  the  synthesis  which  includes  them  both.  That 
which  at  first  we  take  as  immediate  and  complete  in  itself, 
presently,  by  reason  of  the  fact  that  it  is  not  such  a  com- 
plete whole,  but  only  a  part  of  the  entire  reality,  shows  its 
incompleteness  by  passing  into  its  opposite ;  and  then  fol- 
lows the  process  of  reconciliation,  through  which  both  sides 
get  their  rights.  Every  partial  truth  is  thus  preserved, 
and  enters  into  the  final  truth  of  reality ;  but  it  enters  only 
as  a  part,  an  aspect,  and  not  as  self-sufficient  and  complete. 

What  Hegel  has  in  mind  is  abundantly  in  evidence  in 
the  history  of  the  intellectual  experience.  Most  of  us  have 
had  occasion  to  recognize  the  fact  that  any  ordinary  truth, 
if  pushed  too  far,  taken  too  absolutely,  is  apt  to  lead  to 
contradictions ;  and  that  these  contrary  considerations  have 
to  be  kept  in  mind  as  limits  or  qualifications  before  we  can 


45°        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

reach  any  settled  conclusion.  Thus,  for  example,  in  the 
practical  realm,  if  I  press  too  much  what  I  call  my  abstract 
rights,  it  is  almost  certain  to  lead  me  into  wrong,  or  injus- 
tice ;  concrete  justice  commonly  means  a  balancing,  a  com- 
promise. Or  we  may  think  of  examples  such  as  have  al- 
ready presented  themselves  on  a  large  scale  in  the  history 
of  thought.  Thus  the  principle  of  authority  and  obedience 
in  the  Middle  Ages  passed,  by  a  natural  reaction,  into  the 
contradictory  and  equally  one-sided  principle  of  lawless 
and  arbitrary  freedom  of  the  individual  in  the  Enlighten- 
ment. The  solution  does  not  lie  in  denying  either  princi- 
ple, but  in  combining  them  both  in  the  conception  of 
concrete  freedom,  —  a  freedom  which  is  not  the  mere 
abstract  possibility  of  doing  anything,  but  which  realizes 
itself  by  limiting  itself,  by  turning  its  undefined  possibili- 
ties into  definite  channels,  and  so  by  submitting  itself  to 
the  conditions  and  laws  which  are  needed  to  accomplish 
anything  actual.  The  mental  temper  which  insists  upon 
taking  things  in  their  isolation,  which  cannot  see  more  than 
one  side  of  a  truth  at  a  time,  which  prides  itself  on  being 
clear  cut  and  downright  in  its  thinking,  and  will  always 
have  it  either  that  a  thing  is  so,  or  that  it  is  not  so,  without 
compromise  or  limitation,  represents  what  Hegel  calls  the 
understanding,  whereas  that  more  comprehensive  and  ade- 
quate way  of  looking  at  things  in  their  relationships,  their 
many-sidedness,  he  distinguishes  as  reason. 

The  central  thought  of  Hegel  is,  accordingly,  that  only 
the  whole  is  real.  He  is  entering  a  protest  against  one- 
sidedness  and  incompleteness.  The  partial  fact  is  only  an 
abstraction,  which  needs  to  be  brought  into  connection  with 
the  whole  in  order  to  gain  validity.  Reality  is  not  any  par- 
ticular stage  of  development,  nor  even  the  end  of  develop- 
ment as  a  finished  result ;  it  is  the  process  of  development 
itself  in  its  entirety — the  concrete  universal.  "The  bud 
disappears  in  the  bursting  forth  of  the  blossom,  and  it  may 
be  said  that  the  one  is  contradicted  by  the  other ;  by  the 
fruit,  again,  the  blossom  is  declared  to  be  a  false  existence 


German  Idealism  451 

in  the  plant,  and  the  fruit  is  judged  to  be  its  truth  in  the 
place  of  the  flower.  These  forms  not  only  distinguish 
themselves  from  one  another,  but  likewise  displace  one 
another  as  mutually  incompatible.  But  their  transient  and 
changing  condition  also  converts  them  into  moments  in  an 
organic  unity,  in  which  not  alone  do  they  not  conflict,  but 
in  which  one  is  as  necessary  as  the  other ;  and  this  very 
necessity  first  constitutes  the  life  of  the  whole." 1 

2.  Accordingly,  in  his  philosophical  system,  Hegel  at- 
tempts to  explicate  the  reason  that  is  in  the  world,  by 
applying  his  method  to  the  content  of  experience.  He 
starts  with  a  Logic.  Here,  beginning  with  the  abstractest 
concept  possible — the  concept  of  Being —  Hegel  tries  to 
show  that  the  categories,  or  thought  terms,  which  we  use 
in  thinking  the  world  —  terms  such  as  quantity  and  qual- 
ity, substance  and  causality,  essence,  existence,  and  the 
like  —  belong  to  a  connected  system  of  thought.  They 
pass  one  into  another  by  a  dialectical  process,  until  they  cul- 
minate at  last  in  the  complete  notion  which  includes  them 
all.  This  is  essentially  the  notion  of  self-consciousness, 
which  thus  remains  the  supreme  category  for  interpret- 
ing the  world.  Next  we  have  the  Philosophy  of  Nature, 
in  which  this  same  Reason  is  examined  in  the  form  in 
which  it  becomes  externalized  in  the  objective  world.  The 
Reason  which  is  present  in  nature  advances,  by  one  step 
after  another,  from  the  purely  mechanical  realm,  until  it 
attains  its  highest  form  in  the  human  body;  and  this 
serves  as  a  transition  to  the  Philosophy  of  Mind,  or  Spirit. 
Here  again  there  are  three  stages:  the  merely  Subjective 
Mind,  as  it  is  dealt  with  by  Anthropology  and  Psychol- 
ogy ;  Objective  Mind,  as  it  actualizes  itself  in  objective 
social  institutions ;  and  Absolute  Spirit,  where  Spirit 
finally  attains  to  complete  self-consciousness,  and  to  the 
unity  of  the  subjective  and  the  objective,  in  Art,  Religion, 


1  Quoted    from    Wisdom  and  Religion  of  a  German  Philosopher.     (Paul, 
Trench,  Trubner  &  Co.) 


452         A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

and  Philosophy.     Such,  briefly,  is  the  course  which  devel- 
opment pursues. 

But  now  the  question  arises  as  to  the  sense  in  which 
Hegel  intends  this  development  to  be  taken.  Is  it  a  true 
development,  a  process  which  goes  on  in  reality  itself  ? 
There  are  difficult  questions  involved  in  an  interpretation  of 
Hegel  here.  Perhaps  the  simplest  and  clearest  way  would 
be  to  suppose  that  we  have  to  do  merely  with  a  logical 
process  in  our  own  minds.  If  we  take  a  certain  concept  as 
complete,  then  by  reference  to  the  completer  reality  of  our 
knowledge,  it  shows  its  partial  nature,  and  leads  us  on  to 
its  connection  with  this  larger  fact  of  which  it  is  a  part. 
This,  however,  hardly  does  justice  to  all  of  Hegel's  claims ; 
and  it  seems  not  to  cover  fully  a  large  portion  of  his  work, 
which  is  concerned  with  the  actual  experience  of  mankind, 
and  in  which  he  is  dealing  with  what  most  certainly  is  a 
true  development.  In  the  philosophy  of  history,  e.g.,  or 
of  religion,  or  in  the  history  of  philosophy,  the  reference 
to  the  concrete  growth  of  human  knowledge  and  experience 
is  not  a  matter  of  option,  but  essential  and  fundamental. 
It  is  doubtful  whether  Hegel  can  be  made  wholly  consist- 
ent and  intelligible ;  whether  in  his  eagerness  for  system 
he  has  not  brought  together  conflicting  motives  without  a 
real  reconciliation.  In  the  end,  he  undoubtedly  means  to 
deny  that  actual  development  in  time  is  the  final  truth  of 
things.  The  end  must  somehow  be  present  in  the  earlier 
stages,  must  somehow  be  eternally  complete  and  non-tem- 
poral. But  how  our  concrete  experience,  which  assuredly 
is  in  some  real  sense  a  growth,  connects  with  this  absolute 
reality,  or  how  it  stands  related  to  the  conceptual  devel- 
opment of  the  Logic,  Hegel  does  not  very  satisfactorily 
clear  up. 

2.    The  Stages  in  the  Development  of  Spirit 

I.  Logic. — The  Logic  represents  probably  Hegel's 
greatest  work.  But  its  nature  is  such  that  no  brief  sum- 


German  Idealism  453 

mary  can  give  any  real  understanding  of  it.  Its  value  lies 
in  the  acute  analysis,  in  detail,  to  which  it  subjects  the 
chief  concepts  we  are  accustomed  to  use  in  thinking  the 
world,  and  the  bringing  to  light  of  their  essentially  relative 
character,  the  limitations  which  attend  their  application, 
and  their  final  interpretation  in  the  light  of  mind  as  a  self- 
conscious  and  unitary  organism.  It  begins  with  the  sim- 
plest possible  category  —  that  of  Being.  That  it  is, 
represents  the  very  least  we  can  say  of  anything.  But 
now  just  because  it  is  so  very  abstract,  we  cannot  stop 
with  it.  To  say  a  thing  is,  and  no  more,  is  practically  to 
say  nothing  at  all ;  Being  passes  into  its  opposite  —  Not- 
Being,  or  Nothing.  And  then  the  one-sidedness  of  both 
terms  leads  to  the  third  member  of  the  triad  —  Becoming, 
—  which  includes  within  itself  the  truth  of  each.  This 
represents  the  general  process  by  which  Hegel  seeks  to 
unfold  the  entire  content  of  the  thought  life.  The  Logic 
as  a  whole  falls  into  three  sections.  The  first,  which  is 
called  the  doctrine  of  Being,  represents  roughly  the  realm 
of  immediate,  unanalyzed  knowledge,  and  includes,  beside 
Being,  such  categories  as  Quality  and  Quantity,  which 
come  to  us  apparently  as  immediate  fact.  The  second 
section  bears  the  name  of  Essence,  and  is  perhaps  the  most 
important  and  enlightening  of  the  three.  It  deals  with  the 
concepts  used  in  ordinary  scientific  analysis  and  explana- 
tion, in  which  the  fact  is  no  longer  taken  immediately,  but 
is  referred  to  something  else  as  its  ground  ;  and  it  includes 
the  categories  of  identity  and  difference,  ground  and  con- 
sequence, essence  and  phenomenon,  substance  and  attri- 
butes, cause  and  effect,  and  the  like.  Hegel  is  very 
successful  in  pointing  out  here  the  difficulties  into  which 
we  get  when  we  try  to  take  these  terms  as  standing  for 
separate  things,  when,  for  example,  we  attempt  to  under- 
stand reality,  or  substance,  as  behind  and  distinct  from  its 
appearances,  or  its  qualities,  instead  of  having  its  nature 
actually  expressed  in  these.  The  third  section  —  that  of 
the  Notion  — reveals  the  higher  truth  of  the  other  two,  by 


454        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

bringing  them  into  relation  to  the  teleological  unity  of  self- 
conscious  thought,  or  Spirit. 

2.  Philosophy  of  Nature  and  Subjective  Mind,  —  We 
may  turn  next,  then,  to  the  more  concrete  application  of 
this  logical  framework  to  reality.     And  the  Philosophy  of 
Nature  I  shall  not  attempt  to  consider.     Nature  is,  indeed, 
a  necessary  factor  in  the  growth  of  Spirit,  for  which  the 
natural  environment  furnishes  the  plastic  material  of  its 
own  self-expression.     But  the  relation  of  Nature  to  the 
rest  of  Hegel's  system  is  extremely  obscure,  while  the 
treatment  which  it  gets  is  confessedly  the  weakest  part  of 
his  whole  philosophy.     We  can  pass  at  once,  therefore,  to 
the   Philosophy  of    Spirit.     In   Subjective    Spirit,   Hegel 
treats  man  purely  as  a  part  of  nature,  a  thing  in  the  world 
which,  though  possessed  of  consciousness,  is  essentially  one 
thing  among  others.     This  is  the  field  which  is  occupied 
by   what   are   called   the   sciences  of   Anthropology  and 
Psychology.     It  will  not  be  necessary  to  dwell  upon  this, 
the  least  important  of  the  divisions  of  Spirit.     In  Objec- 
tive Spirit,  this  inner  life  is  given  content  in  the  form  of 
institutions,  which  at  first  appear  foreign  to  the  individual, 
imposed  upon  him  from  without,  but  which  nevertheless 
have  their  real  justification  in  their  spiritual  character,  as 
an  expression  of  man's  true  self,  apart  from  which  his  life 
would  have  no  real  content. 

3.  Objective  Mind,     (a)  Philosophy  of  Law,  Ethics,  So- 
ciety. —  Now  we  must  remember  —  and  this  Hegel  sets 
himself   to   show   in   detail  —  that  the    reality   and   true 
ground  of  all  philosophy  of  the  social  and  ethical  life  is 
not  in  purely  objective  laws,  to  be  gathered  from  institu- 
tions as  such,  nor  yet  in  purely  individual  motives,  consti- 
tuting the  morality  of  the  private  conscience,  but  rather 
in  the  concrete  life  of  man  in  society,   as  a  progressive 
revelation  and  realization  of  man's  nature.     Accordingly, 
when  we  begin  with  abstract  right,  we  are  not  to  think,  as, 
e.g.,  the  French  Revolutionists  did,  that  the  whole  social 
problem  can  be  solved  by  reference  to  certain  inherent 


German  Idealism  455 

rights,  assumed  dogmatically,  which  belong  to  the  essence 
of  man  as  a  being  distinct  from  the  social  whole.  We 
may,  indeed,  take  the  standpoint  from  which  the  human  will 
is  looked  upon  as  existing  in  itself,  over  against  a  world  of 
relations  into  which  it  has  not  yet  entered,  but  we  are 
not  to  suppose  that  this  is  the  real  man ;  the  conception 
is  merely  abstract  and  formal.  However,  for  theoretical 
purposes,  we  may  suppose  such  a  formal  power  of  enter- 
ing into  relations,  which  are  as  yet  undetermined  ;  and  the 
possessor  of  such  a  formal  freedom  is  in  legal  terms  a  per- 
son. Personality  is  thus  the  abstract  basis  of  abstract  right, 
or  law.  Such  law,  by  reason  of  its  abstract  character,  is 
necessarily  only  negative,  made  up  of  "  Thou  shalt  nots  "  ; 
it  has  no  content,  no  concrete  existence.  To  become  real, 
it  must  enter  concretely  into  a  relation  to  the  objective  world 
which  confronts  it.  That  by  which  the  will  gives  itself  a 
real  standing,  an  objective  existence,  is  possession  or  prop- 
erty. And  it  is,  accordingly,  with  what  this  act  involves, 
that  abstract  law  is  concerned. 

Property,  then,  is  an  object,  in  so  far  as  it  has  come, 
through  seizure,  use,  and  alienation,  into  relation  to  a 
human  will,  and  been  made  an  attribute  of  a  "me"  ;  it  is 
objectified  will.  It  is  thus  a  necessity  of  concrete  freedom, 
and  is  proportionately  sacred.  It  is  to  be  noticed,  how- 
ever, that  abstract  law  says  nothing  as  to  what  or  how 
much  property  any  individual  should  possess  in  any  or- 
ganic state,  where  differences  are  implied ;  its  abstract 
equality  does  not  mean  a  natural  right  to  equality.  This 
is  the  fault  in  the  reasoning  of  the  Revolutionists.  But 
now  this  property  relation  is  not  really  established,  except 
as  my  right  is  recognized  and  allowed  by  my  neighbor.  It 
involves  not  simply  my  will,  but  the  consenting  will  of  an- 
other, and  thus  is  the  objectification  of  this  common  will. 
The  relation  between  things  becomes  the  relation  between 
wills.  Persons  are  related  to  each  other  through  their 
properties ;  they  can  hold  property  only  as  they  also 
respect  each  other's  property. 


456        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

This  objectification  of  the  common  will  forms  the  basis 
of  contract  —  a  fact  which,  it  is  to  be  noticed,  lies  at  the 
bottom,  not  of  all  social  relationships  whatever,  as  earlier 
philosophers  had  thought,  but  only  of  our  relationships  to 
particular  external  things,  which  are  not  intrinsically  con- 
nected with  the  will.  It  is  entirely  different  in  the  case  of 
institutions  which,  like  marriage,  are  an  expression  of  the 
essential  nature  of  man.  As,  therefore,  contracts  are  arbi- 
trary and  accidental,  there  is  no  guarantee  against  their 
passing  into  injustice  or  wrong.  This  may  take  the  form 
of  unconscious  wrong,  or  of  fraud,  or  of  crime,  by  which, 
through  my  property,  violence  is  used  upon  my  will.  But 
since  freedom  is  the  basis  of  all  right,  by  attacking  the 
freedom  of  another,  the  criminal  is  attacking  himself  and 
his  own  right ;  his  act  is  self-contradictory  and  self-destruc- 
tive, and  force  may  legitimately  be  used  to  defeat  it. 

.This  is  the  foundation  of  the  right  of  compulsion.  And 
as  the  crime  exists,  not  in  the  external  world,  but  in  the 
will  of  the  criminal,  compulsion  thus  appears  as  punish- 
ment—  the  reaction,  upon  the  will  of  the  perpetrator,  of 
his  criminal  act,  so  that  its  essential  self-contradictoriness 
comes  home  to  him.  The  punishment  is  the  completion  of 
his  own  act,  and  is  called  for  by  justice  to  the  criminal 
himself.  The  offender,  in  receiving  punishment,  is  really 
being  treated  simply  with  the  honor  due  to  a  presumptively 
rational  being.  But  such  a  reaction  should  not  be  in  turn 
arbitrary  and  individual  —  that  is  but  adding  one  wrong  to 
another ;  it  should  proceed  from  a  reflective  interpretation 
of  the  principle  that  is  involved.  Here,  therefore,  is  a  de- 
mand for  a  particular  will  that  can,  at  the  same  time,  will 
the  universal ;  and  thus  we  rise  to  the  stage  of  subjective, 
reflective  will,  or  morality. 

In  Morality  man  becomes  aware  of  the  universal  char- 
acter of  those  acts  which  hitherto  he  has  performed  unreflec- 
tively,  and  so  with  the  possibility  of  discord ;  his  acts  are 
brought  home  to  the  conscience.  But  Conscience,  so  long 
as  it  remains  at  the  stage  of  mere  self-determination,  is  still 


German  Idealism  457 

incomplete.  I  may  will  the  Good,  but  who  shall  tell  me 
what  the  Good  really  is  ?  "  Duty  for  duty's  sake,"  "  Do 
right  though  the  heavens  fall,"  sound  very  well ;  but  what 
is  right,  and  what  is  duty,  in  any  particular  case?  Thus 
in  the  popular  sense,  Conscience  often  comes  to  mean  sim- 
ply what  my  particular  desires  or  unintelligent  prejudices 
impel  me  to  do.  The  action  is  the  result  of  mere  blind 
feeling,  and  may  as  well  be  bad  as  right.  There  is  need 
not  only  of  a  self-determination,  but  of  a  self-determination 
by  reference  to  an  objective  standard.  I  transform  the 
realm  of  subjective  morality  into  true  ethical  life,  only  as 
I  give  up  a  purely  individual  private  judgment,  whose  logi- 
cal issue  is  anarchy,  and  become  a  member  of  an  objec- 
tively constituted  society,  whose  authority  I  acknowledge 
as  guide,  and  whose  institutions  and  customs  I  accept  as 
giving  enlightenment,  control,  and  definiteness  to  my  moral 
life. 

Here,  in  the  ethical  relations  of  the  family,  civil  society, 
the  state,  and,  finally,  humanity,  the  true  life  and  freedom 
of  the  will  is  concretely  realized.  Abstract  rights,  and  ab- 
stract duties,  become  concrete  and  specific,  and  thereby 
the  individual  liberates  and  elevates  himself  to  real  or  sub- 
stantial freedom.  Only  in  society  does  man  really  exist, 
really  win  the  actual  attainment  of  selfhood  and  individual- 
ity, which  are  his  birthright.  It  is  in  the  family  that  the 
individual  first  comes  to  himself  —  an  institution  no  longer 
by  contract,  but  by  the  grace  of  God.  The  principle  of  the 
family  is  love,  which  includes  all  the  members,  and  unites 
them  by  a  living  bond.  The  Family  involves  (i)  marriage, 
in  which  the  physical  union  is  transformed  into  a  spiritual 
one.  The  two  persons  submit  to  limitations,  in  order  to 
gain  fuller  self-realization ;  only  in  marriage  does  man  find 
his  completion.  (2)  The  family  property,  which  gains  now 
an  ethical  value  by  becoming  common  property.  (3)  The 
education  of  the  children  to  maturity. 

And  this  forms  the  transition  to  the  second  stage  of  the 
ethical  world  —  civil  society  ;  for  the  Family  is  inadequate 


45 8        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

to  the  full  nature  of  man.  As  the  children  leave  the  home, 
and  families  separate,  the  need  arises  for  another  and 
higher  unity,  to  bring  together  this  newly  emerging  inde- 
pendence. In  its  first  phase,  this  takes  the  aspect  of  an 
external  power,  by  which  the  conflicting  interests  of  indi- 
viduals are  restrained,  and  a  field  for  their  activity  secured. 
It  is  society  on  the  side  of  government,  and  represents  that 
ideal  of  society  which  the  Enlightenment  brought  to  the 
front.  Men  are  really  separate  existences,  possessing  pri- 
vate interests,  and  bound  to  aggrandize  themselves  to  the 
top  of  their  power.  But  since,  if  unrestrained  liberty  were 
allowed,  these  conflicting  interests  would  clash,  it  is  desir- 
able to  give  up  a  certain  amount  of  liberty,  in  so  far  as  it 
conflicts  with  the  liberty  of  others,  in  order  to  gain  the  ad- 
vantage of  the  resulting  security.  Government  is  thus  a 
police  arrangement,  which  brings  men  into  outer  harmony, 
but  adopts  the  policy  of  laissez  faire  in  all  other  directions. 
Under  this  head,  Hegel  takes  up  various  organs  and  func- 
tions of  civil  society,  and  shows  how,  underneath  them  all, 
the  real  motive  force  revealing  itself  is  not  such  an  abstract 
conception  of  government,  but  rather  the  ideal  which  finds 
its  expression  in  the  truer  reality  of  the  State  or  Nation. 

It  is  this  latter  reality,  as  the  organic  unity  of  the  feel- 
ings, customs,  and  genius  of  a  people,  immanent  in  their 
whole  activity, — a  moral  personality,  a  temple  whose  build- 
ing is  of  living  stones,  the  work  of  God  in  history  realizing 
the  moral  order  of  the  world,  —  which  represents  the  frui- 
tion and  consummation  of  the  moral  life  of  humanity,  and 
makes  man  for  the  first  time  truly  human.  The  State  is 
the  true  end  of  man,  not  merely  a  means.  It  is  the  recon- 
ciliation of  the  private  interests  of  the  individual  with  the 
universal  aims,  the  interest  of  the  public.  As  such,  it 
does  not  repress  personality,  as  did  the  ancient  state ; 
rather  it  builds  upon  it.  But  personality  is  not  mere  in- 
dividualism. The  true  person  is  a  social  person,  who  has 
his  rights  and  his  duties  only  as  a  member  of  society.  As 
such,  his  rights  and  his  duty  are  identical.  Duty  is  not 


German  Idealism  459 

imposed  upon  him  by  authority,  but  only  by  accomplishing 
it  does  he  find  self-satisfaction.  And  duty  exists  only  with 
reference  to  those  expressions  of  the  universal  will  which 
have  been  objectified  in  law  and  custom.  The  striving 
for  a  morality  of  one's  own  is  futile,  and  by  its  very  nature 
impossible  of  attainment.  In  regard  to  morality  the  say- 
ing of  the  wisest  man  of  antiquity  is  the  only  true  one : 
to  be  moral  is  to  live  in  accordance  with  the  moral  tradi- 
tions of  one's  country.  These  traditions  are  but  the  pro- 
gressive revelation  of  the  universal  will,  or  spirit  of  the 
national  genius  ;  to  alter  them,  one  must  not  set  himself 
outside  them  as  a  judge,  on  the  basis  of  his  own  private 
conscience,  but  must  rather  act  from  within,  as  the  organ 
of  the  immanent  Spirit  advancing  to  a  more  complete 
realization. 

This  idea  of  the  state,  Hegel  considers  (i)  in  its  im- 
mediate existence  in  the  individual  state ;  (2)  in  the  relation 
of  the  single  state  to  other  states  —  external  polity ;  and 
(3)  as  the  universal  Spirit  of  Humanity,  superior  to  the 
individual  state,  and  realizing  itself  in  the  process  of  history. 
As  regards  the  internal  constitution  of  the  State,  the  essen- 
tial principle  is  the  organic  relation  of  powers  in  a  unity, 
not  the  mechanical  aggregate  of  mutual  "  checks,"  which 
is  the  theory  that  the  purely  negative  conception  of  gov- 
ernment leads  to.  These  essential  factors  are  (i)  the 
power  to  define  and  determine  the  universal  in  the  form 
of  law  —  the  Legislative  power;  (2)  the  power  to  apply 
this  universal  in  particular  spheres  and  to  single  cases  — 
the  governing  or  Executive  power;  and  (3)  the  power  of 
ultimate  decision  —  the  power  of  the  Prince  —  in  which 
the  different  powers  are  brought  together  into  an  individual 
unity.  The  highest  form  of  the  State,  accordingly,  Hegel 
finds  in  the  Constitutional  Monarchy. 

(U)  Philosophy  of  History.  —  As  the  human  being  is 
not  a  person  except  in  relation  to  other  persons,  so  the 
State  is  not  an  individual  save  in  relation  to  other  states  ; 
and  the  highest  phase  of  this,  when  it  becomes  internal- 


460        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

ized,  is  found  in  that  organic  relation  which  constitutes 
the  History  of  Humanity.  In  his  Philosophy  of  History, 
which  is  one  of  Hegel's  most  characteristic  and  most 
interesting  works,  he  tries  to  unfold  the  "  grand  argument 
of  human  existence,"  to  trace  the  law  of  development 
which  runs  through  the  whole  past  life  of  the  race,  to 
discover  the  particular  genius  which  each  great  world 
power  has  displayed,  and  to  relate  this  to  the  all-compre- 
hending Idea,  which  is  immanent  in  the  entire  process. 

What,  then,  is  the  plot  of  this  great  drama  ?  Briefly, 
History  is  progress  in  the  consciousness  of  rational  freedom. 
It  is  the  discipline  of  the  uncontrolled  natural  will,  bringing 
it  into  obedience  to  a  universal  principle.  In  its  first  form, 
in  Asia,  Spirit  is  still  immersed  in  Nature.  Law  and 
morality  are  regarded  as  something  fixed  and  external ;  they 
need  not  concur  with  the  desire  of  the  individual,  and  the 
subjects  are  consequently  like  children,  who  obey  their 
parents  without  will  and  insight  of  their  own.  In  the  law 
men  recognize  not  their  own  will,  but  one  entirely  foreign. 
Justice  is  administered  only  on  the  basis  of  external 
morality,  and  Government  exists  only  as  the  prerogative  of 
compulsion.  So,  also,  Religion  and  the  State  are  not 
distinguished,  and  the  constitution  generally  is  a  Theocracy. 
This  is  the  childhood  of  History. 

The  Greek  world  may  be  compared  with  the  period 
of  adolescence,  for  here  we  have  individualities  forming 
themselves.  This  is  the  second  main  principle  in  human 
history.  In  China  the  subject  obeys  an  absolute  fixed  law, 
with  reference  to  which  his  own  will  is  external  and  wholly 
dependent,  a  mere  accident.  In  Greece,  the  principle  of 
universality  is  impressed  upon  the  individual  himself,  and  he 
finds  himself  in  immediate  harmony  with  the  outer  expres- 
sion of  this  in  Nature  and  the  State ;  he  himself  wills  that 
which  is  laid  on  the  Oriental  as  an  external  constraint.  In 
opposition,  then,  to  the  absorption  in  Nature  of  the 
Oriental  world,  the  Greeks  transform  the  natural  into  an 
expression  of  spiritual  truth.  But  since  the  freedom  of 


German  Idealism  461 

Spirit  is  conditioned  by  some  stimulus  which  Nature  sup- 
plies, spirituality  is  not  yet  absolutely  free,  not  yet  abso- 
lutely self-produced  —  is  not  self-stimulation.  The  idea  is 
not  yet  regarded  abstractly,  but  is  immediately  bound  up 
with  the  real,  as  in  a  beautiful  work  of  art.  The  Greek 
Spirit  is  the  plastic  artist,  forming  the  stone  into  a  work  of 
art.  The  artist  needs  for  his  spiritual  conceptions,  stone, 
colors,  sensuous  forms,  to  express  his  idea.  Without  such 
an  element,  he  can  no  more  be  conscious  of  his  idea  him- 
self, than  give  it  an  objective  form  for  the  contemplation  of 
others,  since  it  cannot  in  thought  alone  become  an  object 
to  him. 

The  Greek  Spirit  was  not  enduring,  because  the  Idea 
was  too  closely  bound  up  with  a  particular  material  form; 
it  was  not  yet  recognized  as  purely  spiritual.  In  the  next 
phase  of  history  the  Idea  becomes  separated  as  an  abstract 
universality  (in  which  the  social  aim  absorbs  all  individ- 
ual aims).  This  is  the  Roman  State,  which  represents  the 
severe  labors  of  the  manhood  of  history.  The  State  begins 
to  have  an  abstract  existence,  and  to  develop  itself  for  a 
definite  object ;  and  in  doing  this  there  is  involved  a  rec- 
ognition of  its  members  as  abstract  individuals  —  as 
persons  with  definite  rights  before  the  law.  But  while 
individuals  have  a  share  in  the  end  of  the  State,  it  is 
not  a  complete  and  concrete  one,  calling  their  whole  being 
into  play.  Free  individuals  are  sacrificed  to  the  demands 
of  the  national  objects.  The  geniality  and  joy  of  soul 
that  existed  in  the  Athenian  Polis  have  given  place  to 
harsh  and  vigorous  toil.  Free,  complete,  substantial  free- 
dom is  attained  only  in  the  fourth  phase  of  world 
history  —  the  German.  This  would  answer,  in  the  com- 
parison with  the  periods  of  human  life,  to  its  old  age. 
But  while  the  old  age  of  Nature  is  weakness,  that  of  Spirit 
is  its  perfect  maturity  and  strength.  Freedom  has  found 
the  means  of  realizing  its  ideal  —  its  true  existence. 

4.  Absolute  Mind,  (a}  Art.  —  But  the  State  still  does  not 
represent  the  full  experience  of  man,  and  political  life  is  not 


462         A  Students  History  of  Philosophy 

his  highest  and  truest  activity ;  complete  freedom  he  can 
find  only  in  the  life  of  Spirit  as  such.  Above,  then,  the  life 
of  the  State,  there  exist  the  free  realms  of  Art,  Religion,  and 
Philosophy,  in  which  the  opposition  of  the  outer  and  the 
inner  is  overcome  still  more  completely,  and  man  sees  him- 
self at  last  as  he  truly  is  —  pure  Spirit.  In  Art  we  see 
the  triumph  of  the  idea  over  matter  anticipated.  The 
material  of  the  artist  bodies  forth  the  idea  which  he  means 
to  express  immediately,  without  the  intervention  of  the 
discursive  reason.  But  still  the  material  which  the  idea 
employs  is  not  perfectly  plastic ;  and  this  greater  or  less 
rebelliousness  of  character  furnishes  the  basis  for  the  dis- 
tinction between  the  various  arts.  In  architecture,  the  ele- 
mentary stage,  idea  and  form  are  still  distinct,  and  the 
latter  only  symbolizes  the  former.  So  the  cathedral  may 
symbolize  religious  aspiration,  but  it  is  still  far  removed 
from  the  idea  for  which  it  stands.  By  its  vast  proportions 
it  may  express  solemnity  and  grandeur,  but  it  cannot  sug- 
gest the  finer  shades  of  feeling. 

This  dualism  partly  disappears  in  sculpture.  Sculpture 
has  this  in  common  with  architecture,  that  it  employs  as 
its  material  gross  matter  ;  but  it  is  more  capable  of  trans- 
forming and  spiritualizing  this.  It  is  able  to  utilize  every- 
thing, instead  of  leaving  many  details  which  are  unessential 
to  the  idea,  as  in  architecture.  But  it  cannot  represent 
the  soul  itself  as  revealed  in  the  eye  ;  this  belongs  to /#/«/- 
ing.  In  painting,  also,  the  material  is  somewhat  less 
gross;  it  is  the  plane  surface,  in  which  depth  is  repre- 
sented only  by  appearance.  It  is  still,  however,  objective 
art,  still  bound  to  matter,  and  so,  like  architecture  and 
sculpture,  incapable  of  expressing  anything  beyond  a 
moment  of  life.  This  limitation  is  overcome  in  music, 
the  subjective,  immaterial  art,  which  can  reproduce  all 
the  infinite  variety  of  the  inner  life.  But  its  subjectivity 
is  likewise  a  limitation.  Music  also  symbolizes,  and  so  is 
capable  of  various  interpretations.  The  union  of  the  sub- 
jective and  the  objective  is  brought  about  in  the  art  of  arts 


German  Idealism  463 

— poetry.  Poetry  converts  the  vague  and  indefinite  sound 
which  is  the  material  of  music,  into  articulate  and  definite 
sound — language  —  in  which  the  material  is  wholly  sub- 
ordinated to  the  idea,  and  so  becomes  adequate.  Poetry 
sums  up  in  itself  all  the  other  arts  :  epic  poetry  corresponds 
to  the  material  arts  ;  lyric  poetry  to  music  ;  while  the  crown 
of  all,  reconciling  the  two,  and  constituting  the  supreme 
artistic  expression  of  the  highest  civilization,  is  dramatic 
poetry. 

On  the  historical  side,  Oriental  art  is  symbolical,  de- 
lighting in  allegories  and  parables,  and  shows  its  inability 
to  cope  with  its  material  by  its  lack  of  form,  and  fondness 
for  exaggeration.  In  Greek  art,  symbolism  is  superseded 
by  direct  expression,  in  which  matter  and  idea  perfectly 
coincide  ;  but  Greek  art  is  defective  through  its  very  per- 
fection. The  idea  is  so  completely  identified  with  its 
matter,  that  it  becomes  purely  naturalistic ;  the  spiritual 
character  of  the  idea  is  sacrificed  to  mere  physical  beauty. 
This  fault  is  corrected  in  Christian  art.  Here  art  is  re- 
called from  the  physical  world,  and  the  ideal  of  physical 
beauty  is  subordinated  to  that  of  spiritual  beauty  —  the 
worship  of  the  Virgin  follows  the  cultus  of  Venus.  But 
just  because  the  moral  ideal  is  so  far  beyond  the  power 
of  matter  to  embody,  Christian  art,  despairing  of  ade- 
quately expressing  it,  lapses  into  the  contempt  of  form 
which  characterizes  Romanticism. 

(b)  Religion  and  Philosophy.  —  That  identification  of 
thought  and  the  object,  of  the  finite  and  the  infinite, 
which  receives  a  partial  expression  in  art,  is  raised  to  a 
higher  power  in  religion.  Here,  again,  there  is  no  ques- 
tion, for  Hegel,  of  proving  the  reality  of  God,  and  the  truth 
of  religion,  in  the  ordinary  sense.  He  is  interested  rather 
in  the  explication  of  that  religious  experience,  which  for 
him  is  identical  with  God.  The  religious  experience  exists 
as  a  fact  given  to  philosophy  to  understand,  not  to  create ; 
and  since  God  has  His  existence  within  experience,  not 
outside  of  it,  the  more  supreme  and  comprehensive  experi- 


464        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

ence  is,  the  more  adequately  God  is  revealed  in  it.  Accord- 
ingly, Hegel  has  no  patience  with  the  temper  of  the 
Enlightenment,  which  would  reject  positive  religions  as 
false  and  man-made,  and  confine  its  religious  beliefs  to 
a  few  abstract  dogmas  of  Deism.  Religion  exists  just  in 
the  process  of  religious  development ;  and  the  stages 
of  this  development  are  to  be  interpreted,  not  judged, 
except  as  they  are  judged  by  the  further  historical  develop- 
ment which  passes  beyond  them. 

The  failure  of  art  to  embody  the  Idea  fully,  gives  rise 
to  a  new  dualism  —  the  religious  dualism  of  the  finite  and 
the  infinite ;  and  the  progress  of  religion  is  the  healing  of 
this  separation.  The  three  elements  of  the  religious  idea 

—  God,  man,  and  the  relation  between   them  —  underlie 
the  successive  stages  of  religious  development.     In  Ori- 
ental  religions,  the  idea  of  the   infinite  prevails.     God  is 
everything  (Pantheism),  and  man  is  nothing.     God  is  what 
the  despot  is  in  the  political  sphere  —  an  all-potent  being, 
upon  whose  will  men  are  wholly  dependent,  so  that  noth- 
ing is  left  for  man  but  submission.     The  religion  of  the 
Greek,  on  the  contrary,  is  a  religion  of  naturalism,  and 
the  finite.     Man  is  the  final  object  of  his  worship.     His 
gods   are   essentially    human    attributes    concretely    em- 
bodied, and  raised  by  art  to  the  position  of  types. 

These  two  extremes  are  reconciled  in  Christianity,  the 
absolute  religion,  for  which  the  important  thing  is  neither 
God  by  Himself,  nor  man  by  himself,  but  the  concrete 
unity  of  the  divine  and  human  in  Christ  —  the  God-man. 
Christianity  finds  God,  the  infinite,  implicated  in  the  finite 

—  in  human  consciousness,  and  the  process  of  the  world. 
Its   dogmas,  however,  are   to   be   taken   in   this   way   as 
shadowing  forth  in  terms  of  the  imagination  the  eternal 
progress  of  the  Idea  —  not  as  metaphysical  truth,  nor  as 
the  statement  of  historical  facts  that  happened   eighteen 
hundred  years  ago.     And  for  this  reason  —  that  religion 
is  still  in  the  realm  of  imaginative  representation — there 
is  a  higher  stage  still.     The  truths  which  are  but  shadowed 


German  Idealism  465 

forth  in  religion,  get  their  clear,  rational  statement  —  the 
Idea  comes  to  a  full  consciousness  of  itself  —  in  that  de- 
velopment of  pure  thought  which  constitutes  the  History 
of  Philosophy,  and  which  has  its  outcome  in  the  philosophy 
of  —  Hegel. 

5.  Defects  of  HegePs  Philosophy. — Hegel's  claim,  that 
at  last  the  absolute  had  attained  to  full  self-consciousness, 
was  hardly  borne  out  by  subsequent  events.  His  influ- 
ence, supreme  at  his  death,  was  not  destined  to  continue 
long  unchecked.  Within  his  own  school  there  was  pres- 
ently a  split  over  the  interpretation  of  his  attitude  toward 
religious  problems;  while  without,  opponents  sprang  up 
on  every  side,  among  whom  Herbart  may  be  specially 
mentioned.  The  opposing  forces  were  for  a  time  success- 
ful, and  in  the  reaction,  an  exaggerated  admiration  gave 
place  to  an  equally  extreme  disparagement.  We  may 
note,  briefly,  the  chief  weaknesses  in  Hegel's  system, 
which  brought  about  this  result. 

And  first,  while  his  attempt  to  show  the  rationality  of  all 
reality  constitutes  one  of  the  main  excellences  of  Hegel,  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that  he  exaggerated  the  extent  to  which 
this  rationality  is  a  transparent  one  for  human  thought, 
and  its  logically  necessary  character.  If  we  were  to  judge 
by  many  of  the  utterances  of  Hegel  and  his  disciples,  all 
mystery  is  at  last  dispelled  in  the  clear  light  of  reason, 
and  the  whole  course  of  creation  may  be  watched,  as  it 
moves  with  logical  necessity  from  one  step  to  the  next. 
In  opposition  to  this  extreme  and  presumptuous  gnosti- 
cism, Kant,  and  his  limitation  of  the  human  faculties  to 
mere  phenomena,  proved  a  welcome  relief.  The  sense 
of  the  ultimate  mystery  of  things,  the  recognition  of  man's 
dependence  on  a  reality  beyond  him,  and  of  the  insuffi- 
ciency of  anything  that  he  can  call  knowledge  to  measure 
the  immensity  of  existence,  the  pressure  of  the  facts  of 
evil,  sin,  and  suffering,  of  which  Hegel  never  showed  any  ade- 
quate appreciation  —  these  things  all  tended  again  to  come 
to  the  front.  Accordingly,  on  every  side,  in  opposition 

2H 


466        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

to  the  gnosticism  and  logical  idealism  of  Hegel,  there  have 
arisen  the  claims  of  faith,  or  intuition,  as  opposed  to  rea- 
son ;  the  assertion  of  ultimate  agnosticism  ;  or  even,  as  in 
Schopenhauer,  the  insistence  on  the  positive  znrationality 
of  things,  as  a  final  metaphysical  creed;  while  for  the 
purely  phenomenal  knowledge  which  it  is  possible  to  at- 
tain, we  are  directed  to  the  sober  methods  of  science. 

And  it  is  in  particular  by  this  insistence  on  the  claims 
of  science,  that  the  more  recent  thought  is  marked.  It 
was  this  which  served  as  a  chief  cause  for  the  discredit 
into  which  Hegel's  philosophy  fell.  For  the  spiritual  side 
of  life,  Hegel  had  done  much ;  but  what  of  that  great 
independent  world  of  things,  on  which  the  experience  of 
man  depends,  and  which  seems  at  times  so  indifferent,  so 
antagonistic  even,  to  human  interests  ?  Hegel's  treatment 
of  this  had  been  weak  and  fanciful,  and  he  had  even  set 
himself  actively  against  what  have  proved  to  be  fruitful 
scientific  ideas.  Before  a  final  philosophical  rendering 
could  be  made,  it  was  necessary  to  turn  once  more  to  the 
objective  aspect  of  the  world,  and  carry  out,  in  all  their 
rigor,  the  principles  on  which  science  proceeds ;  and  this 
was  the  great  task  of  the  scientific  development  which 
dominates  the  thought  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

And,  finally,  there  was  a  new  social  spirit  coming  to 
birth,  which  Hegel  failed  also  to  satisfy.  For  him,  the 
task  of  philosophy  was  simply  to  interpret  the  movement 
of  the  Universal  Spirit  as  it  had  already  embodied  itself  in 
social  institutions ;  it  was  not  in  any  sense  to  prophesy,  or 
to  construct  ideals.  The  whole  effort  of  Hegel  had  been 
to  show  that  truth  is  to  be  found  in  the  actual,  that  be- 
tween thought  and  reality,  the  ideal  and  the  real,  there  is 
no  separation.  Substantial  freedom  consists  in  accepting 
the  duties  of  our  position  in  Society  as  we  find  it,  not  in 
setting  our  finite  wills  in  rebellion  against  the  world  spirit. 
To  the  new  temper  which  was  beginning  to  demand  so- 
cial justice,  and  a  reconstitution  of  society  that  should 
give  something  for  the  mass  of  men  to  hope  for,  and  re- 


German  Idealism  467 

lieve  the  sufferings  of  those  with  whom  the  Idea  had  not 
seen  fit  to  concern  itself,  Hegel  seemed  to  have  nothing  to 
say.  Indeed,  to  men  of  such  a  temper,  he  appeared  even 
a  reactionary  —  one  who  had  found  the  highest  expression 
of  human  freedom  in  that  latest  development  of  History, 
the  corrupt  Prussian  State  of  his  day,  beyond  which  it  was 
idle  to  attempt  to  look. 

Without  trying,  then,  to  disentangle  all  the  complexity 
of  recent  philosophical  thought,  we  may  consider,  briefly, 
three  or  four  of  the  more  representative  names  and  move- 
ments :  the  return,  in  Schopenhauer,  to  the  thing-in-itself 
as  a  reality  deeper  than  experience  and  thought ;  the  com- 
bination of  scientific  method  and  social  amelioration,  with 
an  ultimate  agnosticism,  in  the  Positivism  of  Comte  ;  and 
the  rise  of  the  theory  and  philosophy  of  Evolution  in 
Darwin  and  Spencer. 

LITERATURE 

Hegel,  Chief  Works  :  Phenomenology  of  Spirit  (1807)  ;  Logic  (1816)  ; 
Encyclopedia  of  Philosophical  Sciences  (1817)  ;  Philosophy  of  Right 
(1821);  Philosophy  of  Religion;  Esthetics]  Philosophy  of  History; 
History  of  Philosophy.  Translations:  Wallace  (Logic,  Philosophy  of 
Mind)  ;  Sibree  (Philosophy  of  History)  ;  Dyde  (Philosophy  of  Right)  ; 
Bosanquet,  (Philosophy of 'Art) ;  Hastie  (^Esthetics)  ;  Haldane  (History 
of  Philosophy) . 

Sterrett,  The  Ethics  of  Hegel, 

Stirling,  The  Secret  of  Hegel. 

Caird,  Hegel. 

Kedney,  HegeFs  ^Esthetics. 

Morris,  Hegel's  Philosophy  of  the  State  and  of  History. 

Harris,  Hegel's  Logic. 

Seth,  From  Kant  to  Hegel. 

Seth,  Hegelianism  and  Personality. 

Wallace,  Prolegomena  to  the  Study  of  Hegel. 

McTaggart,  Studies  in  Hegelian  Dialectic. 

McTaggart,  Studies  in  Hegelian  Cosmology. 

Ritchie,  Darivin  and  Hegel. 

Baillie,  Origin  and  Significance  of  Hegel's  Logic. 

Hibben,  Hegel's  Logic. 

Mackintosh,  Hegel  and  Hegelianism. 


PHILOSOPHY  SINCE   HEGEL 

§  39.    Schopenhauer 

Arthur  Schopenhauer  was  born  in.  1788.  His  father  died 
when  he  was  a  youth,  and  between  himself  and  his  mother, 
who  was  a  popular  novelist  of  the  day,  so  little  sympathy 
existed,  that  they  found  it  desirable  to  live  apart.  Scho- 
penhauer's system  was  conceived  early  in  life,  and  his  chief 
work  —  The  World  as  Will  and  as  Idea  —  was  published 
in  1819.  The  cold  reception  which  it  received  was  a  severe 
blow  to  Schopenhauer's  vanity,  which  was  considerable  ; 
and  it  increased  his  disgust  with  the  reigning  philosophy. 
He  was  thoroughly  convinced  that  there  was  a  conspiracy 
among  the  school  philosophers  against  him,  and  he  could 
find  nothing  too  disparaging  to  say  of  them  in  turn,  par- 
ticularly of  Hegel.  He  had  come  in  contact  with  Hegel 
at  Berlin,  where  he  was  appointed  Privatdocent  in  1820. 
He  apparently  had  cherished  hopes  that  he  could  easily 
triumph  over  the  great  philosopher,  whose  popularity  was 
then  at  its  height ;  and  he  deliberately  set  himself  in  ri- 
valry, by  choosing  the  same  hour  for  his  lectures.  When, 
consequently,  he  found  his  own  lectures  unattended,  and 
Hegel's  classroom  thronged,  he  was  greatly  disappointed 
and  embittered,  and  finally  was  led  to  give  up  all  thought 
of  an  academic  career.  The  rest  of  his  life  was  spent  in 
quiet  at  Frankfort-on-the-Main.  Toward  the  close  of  his 
life,  the  recognition  he  had  failed  of  in  his  youth  seemed 
on  the  point  of  coming  to  him.  His  book  began  to  be 
talked  about,  and,  especially  in  its  pessimism,  to  find  con- 
verts, if  not  among  the  technical  philosophers,  at  least 
among  the  laity.  This  growing  fame  soothed  his  last  days. 
He  died  in  1860. 

468 


Philosophy  since  Hegel  469 

i.  The  World  as  Will.  —  The  two  notable  things  about 
Schopenhauer's  philosophy'  are  (i)  his  doctrine  of  the 
Will  as  the  thing-in-itself,  and  (2)  the  way  in  which  he 
founds  on  this  basis  the  first  systematic  philosophy  of  Pes- 
simism. Schopenhauer's  whole  doctrine  relates  itself  to 
Kant,  to  whom  he  professes  to  go  back  in  opposition  to 
the  idealistic  tendency  which  culminated  in  Hegel.  Ac- 
cording to  Kant,  the  world  as  we  know  it  is  a  phenomenal 
construction  of  the  self.  "  '  The  world  is  my  idea  '  —  this 
is  a  truth  which  holds  good  for  everything  that  lives  and 
knows,  though  man  alone  can  bring  it  into  reflective  and 
abstract  consciousness.  If  he  really  does  this,  he  has 
attained  to  philosophical  wisdom.  It  then  becomes  clear 
and  certain  to  him  that  what  he  knows  is  not  a  sun  and 
an  earth,  but  only  an  eye  that  sees  a  sun,  a  hand  that  feels 
an  earth  ;  that  the  world  that  surrounds  him  is  there 
only  as  idea,  i.e.,  only  in  relation  to  something  else  — the 
consciousness  which  is  himself."  1 

But  if  the  world  is  illusion,  appearance,  there  also  exists 
back  of  it  the  reality  which  appears,  —  the  thing-in-itself  of 
Kant,  which  Schopenhauer  defends  vigorously  against  the 
attacks  of  the  Idealists.  Is,  however,  this  thing-in-itself 
unknowable  ?  Here  Schopenhauer  ceases  to  follow  Kant's 
leading.  It  is  true  we  cannot  reach  it  by  the  pathway  of 
the  logical  reason  ;  we  cannot  demonstrate  it  in  the  strict 
sense  of  the  word.  It  is  rather  the  result  of  an  intuition 
of  genius.  But  still  we  may  attain  to  a  highly  probable 
conception  of  its  nature.  For  we  ourselves  are  a  part  of 
the  real  universe,  and  in  ourselves  we  come  upon  reality  at 
first  hand,  through  immediate  experience.  If,  accordingly, 
we  can  get  at  our  own  true  nature,  we  may  by  analogy 
extend  this  to  other  things  as  well,  since  it  is  natural  to 
assume  that  reality  is  all  of  a  piece.  Now  the  inner  essence 
of  man's  nature  is  will  —  this  is  the  first  insight  of  Scho- 
penhauer. Man,  that  is,  is  not  primarily  a  thinking,  an  in- 

1  The  World  as  Will  and  Idea.  Translation  by  Haldane  and  Kemp,  Vol.  I, 
p.  i.  (Paul,  Trench,  Triibner  &  Co.) 


470        A  Students  History  of  Philosophy 

tellectual  being,  as  philosophy  has  tended  to  assume  ;  he  is 
primarily  active,  willing.  The  reality  of  his  own  body  is 
given  to  him  immediately  as  will.  Will,  and  the  movement 
of  the  body,  are  one  thing;  my  body  is  the  objectivity  of 
my  will.  The  various  parts  of  the  body  are  the  visible 
expression  of  desires.  Teeth,  throat,  and  bowels  are  objec- 
tified hunger.  The  brain  is  the  will  to  know,  the  foot  the 
will  to  go,  the  stomach  the  will  to  digest.  It  is  only  on  the 
basis  of  this  active  self-expansion  that  the  thought  life 
arises.  We  think  in  order  to  do ;  the  active  impulse  pre- 
cedes, and  is  the  necessary  basis  for  any  conscious  motive. 
Now  this  thought,  once  attained,  throws  a  flood  of  light 
on  the  outer  world.  The  eternally  striving,  energizing 
power  which  is  working  everywhere  in  the  universe  —  in  the 
instinct  of  the  animal,  in  the  life  process  of  the  plant,  in 
the  blind  force  of  inorganic  matter —  is  not  this  just  the 
will  which  underlies  all  existence  ?  "  If  we  observe  the 
strong  and  unceasing  impulse  with  which  the  waters  hurry 
to  the  ocean,  the  persistency  with  which  the  magnet  turns 
ever  to  the  north  pole,  the  readiness  with  which  iron  flies 
to  the  magnet,  the  eagerness  with  which  the  electric  poles 
seek  to  be  reunited,  and  which,  just  like  human  desire,  is 
increased  by  obstacles ;  if  we  see  the  crystal  quickly  take 
form  with  such  wonderful  regularity  of  construction,  which 
is  clearly  only  a  perfectly  definite  and  accurately  deter- 
mined impulse  in  different  directions,  seized  and  retained 
by  crystallization  ;  if  we  observe  the  choice  with  which 
bodies  repel  and  attract  each  other ;  lastly,  if  we  feel  di- 
rectly how  a  burden  which  hampers  our  body  by  its  gravi- 
tation toward  the  earth,  increasingly  presses  and  strains 
upon  it  in  pursuit  of  its  one  tendency,  —  if  we  observe  all 
this,  I  say,  it  will  require  no  great  effort  of  the  imagination 
to  recognize,  even  at  so  great  a  distance,  our  own  nature. 
That  which  in  us  pursues  its  ends  by  the  light  of  knowl- 
edge, but  here,  in  the  weakest  of  its  manifestations,  only 
strives  blindly  and  dumbly  in  a  one-sided  and  unchangeable 
manner,  must  yet  in  both  cases  come  under  the  name  of 


Philosophy  since  Hegel  471 

Will,  as  it  is  everywhere  one  and  the  same ;  just  as  the 
first  dim  light  of  dawn  must  share  the  name  of  sunlight 
with  the  rays  of  the  full  mid-day."  J 

Reality,  then,  is  Will,  which  is  one  and  indivisible.  All 
apparent  multiplicity  is  due  to  those  subjective  forms  of 
merely  human  thought,  which  come  between  us  and  the 
truth  —  namely,  space  and  time.  "As  the  magic  lantern 
shows  many  different  pictures,  which  are  all  made  visible 
by  one  and  the  same  light,  so  in  all  the  multifarious  phe- 
nomena which  fill  the  world  together,  or  throng  after  each 
other  as  events,  only  one  will  manifests  itself,  of  which 
everything  is  the  visibility,  the  objectivity,  and  which 
remains  unmoved  in  the  midst  of  this  change."  2  But  now 
from  will  we  must  cut  away  all  that  action  for  intelligent 
ends  which  characterizes  the  hitman  will.  Intelligence 
is  only  a  surface  phenomenon  —  a  form  which  existence 
assumes  for  the  attainment  of  its  hungry  striving,  but  a 
form  quite  foreign  to  its  real  nature.  In  itself,  will  is  blind 
and  irrational.  In  all  its  lower  aspects  it  is  without  knowl- 
edge ;  the  nests  of  birds  and  the  webs  of  spiders  are  not 
the  product  of  intelligence,  but  of  unforeseeing  instinct. 
It  is  only  as  its  manifestations  become  more  complex,  that 
it  kindles  for  itself,  in  intellect,  a  light  as  a  means  of  get- 
ting rid  of  the  disadvantages  arising  from  this  complexity. 
The  will  is  thus  more  original  than  the  intellect ;  it  is  the 
blind  man  carrying  on  his  shoulders  the  lame  man  who 
can  see. 

2.  The  Philosopliy  of  Pessimism. —  And  this  gives  the 
basis  for  Schopenhauer's  pessimism ;  it  follows  from  the 
very  nature  of  will.  All  willing  arises  from  want,  and  so 
from  deficiency,  and  so  from  suffering.  "  The  satisfaction 
of  a  wish  ends  it,  yet  for  one  wish  that  is  satisfied  there 
remain  at  least  ten  that  are  denied.  Further,  the  desire 
lasts  long,  and  demands  are  infinite  ;  the  satisfaction  is 
short  and  scantily  measured  out.  It  is  like  the  alms 
thrown  to  a  beggar,  that  keeps  him  alive  to-day,  that  his 
misery  may  be  prolonged  till  the  morrow.  So  long  as  we 
1I,  P-  i53-  2I»P-  i99- 


47 2         <d  Students  History  of  Philosophy 

are  given  up  to  the  throng  of  desires,  with  their  constant 
hopes  and  fears,  so  long  as  we  are  the  subjects  of  willing, 
we  can  never  have  lasting  happiness  or  peace.  It  is 
essentially  all  the  same  whether  we  pursue  or  flee,  fear  in- 
jury or  seek  enjoyment ;  the  care  for  the  constant  demands 
of  the  will  continually  occupies  and  sways  the  conscious- 
ness." J  The  subject  of  willing  thus  is  constantly  stretched 
on  the  revolving  wheel  of  Ixion,  pours  water  into  the  sieve 
of  the  Danaides,  is  the  ever-longing  Tantalus.  No  pos- 
sible satisfaction  in  the  world  could  suffice  to  still  the 
longings  of  the  will,  set  a  goal  to  its  infinite  craving,  and 
fill  the  bottomless  abyss  of  its  heart. 

Life  itself,  therefore,  is  fundamentally  an  evil ;  as 
Calderon  says :  The  greatest  crime  of  man  is  that  he  was 
born.  "  There  is  no  proportion  between  the  cares  and 
troubles  of  life,  and  the  results  or  gain  of  it.  In  the 
simple  and  easily  surveyed  life  of  the  brutes,  the  empti- 
ness and  vanity  of  the  struggle  is  more  easily  grasped. 
The  variety  of  the  organizations,  the  ingenuity  of  the 
means,  whereby  each  is  adapted  to  its  element  and  its 
prey,  contrasts  here  distinctly  with  the  want  of  any  lasting 
final  aim ;  instead  of  which  there  presents  itself  only 
momentary  comfort,  fleeting  pleasure  conditioned  by  wants, 
much  and  long  suffering,  constant  strife,  bellum  omnium, 
each  one  both  a  hunter  and  hunted,  pressure,  want,  need, 
and  anxiety,  shrieking  and  howling.  And  this  goes  on  in 
secula  seculorum,  or  till  once  again  the  crust  of  the  planet 
breaks." 

"  Let  us  now  add  the  consideration  of  the  human  race. 
Here  also  life  presents  itself  by  no  means  as  a  gift  for 
enjoyment,  but  as  a  task,  a  drudgery  to  be  performed ; 
and  in  accordance  with  this  we  see,  in  great  and  small, 
universal  need,  ceaseless  wars,  cares,  constant  pressure, 
endless  strife,  compulsory  activity,  with  extreme  exertion 
of  all  the  powers  of  mind  and  body.  Many  millions,  united 
into  nations,  strive  for  the  common  good,  each  individual 

1 1.  P-  253- 


Philosophy  since  Hegel  473 

on  account  of  his  own ;  but  many  thousands  fall  as  a 
sacrifice  for  it.  Now  senseless  delusions,  now  intriguing 
politics,  excite  them  to  wars  with  each  other;  then  the 
sweat  and  the  blood  of  the  great  multitude  must  flow,  to 
carry  out  the  ideas  of  individuals,  or  to  expiate  their  faults. 
In  peace,  industry  and  trade  are  active,  inventions  work 
miracles,  seas  are  navigated,  delicacies  are  collected  from 
all  ends  of  the  world,  the  waves  engulf  thousands.  All 
strive,  some  planning,  some  acting;  the  tumult  is  in- 
describable. But  the  ultimate  aim  of  it  all  —  what  is  it  ? 
To  sustain  ephemeral  and  tormented  individuals  through 
a  short  span  of  life,  in  the  most  fortunate  case  with  endur- 
able want  and  comparative  freedom  from  pain,  which, 
however,  is  at  once  attended  with  ennui ;  then  the  repro- 
duction of  this  race  and  its  striving.  In  this  evident  dis- 
proportion between  the  trouble  and  the  reward,  the  will 
to  live  appears  to  us  from  this  point  of  view,  if  taken  ob- 
jectively, as  a  fool,  or  subjectively,  as  a  delusion,  seized  by 
which  everything  living  works  with  the  utmost  exertion  of 
its  strength,  for  something  that  is  of  no  value."  1 

"  The  enchantment  of  distance  shows  us  paradises  which 
vanish  like  optical  illusions  when  we  have  allowed  our- 
selves to  be  mocked  by  them.  Happiness,  accordingly, 
always  lies  in  the  future,  or  else  in  the  past,  and  the  pres- 
ent may  be  compared  to  a  small  dark  cloud  which  the 
wind  drives  over  the  sunny  plain ;  before  and  behind  it 
all  is  bright,  only  it  itself  always  casts  a  shadow."  2  Pleasure 
is  merely  negative,  and  only  evil  is  real.  We  feel  pain, 
but  not  painlessness ;  care,  but  not  the  absence  of  care  ; 
fear,  but  not  security.  Hence  all  poets  are  obliged  to 
bring  their  heroes  into  anxious  and  painful  situations,  so 
that  they  may  be  able  to  free  them  from  these.  The 
happiest  moment  of  the  happy  man  is  the  moment  of  his 
falling  asleep.  "  The  earthquake  of  Lisbon,  the  earth- 
quake of  Haiti,  the  destruction  of  Pompeii,  are  only  small 
playful  hints  of  what  is  possible.  A  small  alteration  of 
l,  pp.  ii2ff.  2III,  P.  383. 


474        A  Students  History  of  Philosophy 

the  atmosphere  causes  cholera,  yellow  fever,  black  death, 
which  carry  off  millions  of  men  ;  a  somewhat  greater  altera- 
tion would  extinguish  all  life.  A  very  moderate  increase 
of  heat  would  dry  up  all  the  rivers  and  springs.  The 
brutes  have  received  just  barely  so  much  in  the  way  of 
organs  and  powers  as  enables  them  to  procure,  with  the 
greatest  exertion,  sustenance  for  their  own  lives,  and  food 
for  their  offspring;  therefore  if  a  brute  loses  a  limb,  or 
even  the  full  use  of  one,  it  must  generally  perish.  Even 
of  the  human  race,  powerful  as  are  the  weapons  it  pos- 
sesses in  understanding  and  reason,  nine-tenths  live  in 
constant  conflict  with  want,  balancing  themselves  with 
difficulty  and  effort  upon  the  brink  of  destruction." 1 
"  Whence  did  Dante  take  the  materials  for  his  hell  but 
from  this  our  actual  world?  And  yet  he  made  a  very 
proper  hell  of  it.  And  when  on  the  other  hand  he  came 
to  the  task  of  describing  Heaven  and  its  delights,  he  had 
an  insurmountable  difficulty  before  him,  for  our  world 
affords  no  material  at  all  for  this."2 

It  is  wholly  impossible,  then,  to  find  a  purpose  or 
meaning  in  life.  Why  the  whole  tragi-comedy  exists 
cannot  in  the  least  be  seen,  since  it  has  no  spectators,  and 
the  actors  themselves  undergo  infinite  trouble,  with  little 
and  merely  negative  pleasure.  "  What,  then,  is  a  short 
postponement  of  death,  a  slight  easing  of  misery  or  defer- 
ment of  pain,  a  momentary  stilling  of  desire,  compared 
with  such  an  abundant  and  certain  victory  over  them  all 
as  death  ?  What  could  such  advantages  accomplish  taken 
as  active  moving  causes  of  a  human  race,  innumerable 
because  constantly  renewed,  which  unceasingly  moves, 
strives,  struggles,  grieves,  writhes,  and  performs  the  whole 
tragi-comedy  of  the  history  of  the  world,  nay,  what  says 
more  than  all,  perseveres  in  such  a  mock  existence,  as  long 
as  each  one  possibly  can.  Clearly  this  is  all  inexplicable 
if  we  seek  the  moving  causes  outside  the  figures,  and  con- 
ceive the  human  will  as  striving  in  consequence  of  rational 
i  ill,  p.  396.  *  I,  P.  416. 


Philosophy  since  Hegel  475 

reflection  after  those  good  things  held  out  to  it,  the  attain- 
ment of  which  would  be  a  sufficient  reward  for  its  ceaseless 
cares  and  troubles.  The  matter  being  taken  thus,  every 
one  would  rather  have  long  ago  said  :  '  Le  jeu  ne  vaut  pas 
la  cJiandelle?  and  have  gone  out.  But,  on  the  contrary, 
every  one  guards  and  defends  his  life,  like  a  precious 
pledge  intrusted  to  him  under  heavy  responsibility.  The 
wherefore  and  the  why,  the  reward  for  this,  certainly  he 
does  not  see  ;  but  he  has  accepted  the  worth  of  that  pledge 
without  seeing  it,  upon  trust  and  faith.  The  puppets  are 
not  pulled  from  without,  but  each  bears  in  itself  the  clock- 
work from  which  its  movements  result.  This  is  the  will 
to  live,  manifesting  itself  as  an  untiring  machine,  an  irra- 
tional tendency,  which  has  not  its  sufficient  reason  in  the 
external  world."  1  It  is  this  blind  pressure,  without  goal  or 
motive,  which  drives  us  on,  and  not  anything  that  we  can 
rationally  justify.  "We  pursue  our  life  with  great  interest 
and  much  solicitude  as  long  as  possible ;  so  we  blow  out  a 
soap  bubble  as  long  and  as  large  as  possible,  although  we 
know  perfectly  well  that  it  will  burst."2  Accordingly  we 
often  see  a  miserable  figure,  deformed  and  shrunk  with 
age,  want,  and  disease,  implore  our  help  from  the  bottom 
of  his  heart  for  the  prolongation  of  an  existence,  the  end 
of  which  would  necessarily  appear  altogether  desirable  if 
it  were  an  objective  judgment  that  determined  here. 
Surely,  if  one  knocked  on  the  graves,  and  asked  the  dead 
whether  they  wished  to  rise  again,  they  would  shake  their 
heads. 

3.  The  Way  of  Salvation.  — Such  are  the  facts  of  life; 
is  there  no  deliverance  ?  Can  we  never  for  a  moment  be  set 
free  from  the  miserable  striving  of  the  will,  keep  the  sab- 
bath of  the  penal  servitude  of  willing,  while  the  wheel  of 
Ixion  stands  still  ?  Yes,  in  a  more  or  less  complete  way, 
man  may  free  himself  from  this  all-devouring  will  to  live. 
The  first  and  partial  road  to  deliverance  is  through  art. 
Art  has  to  do,  not  with  the  particular  things  of  the  phe- 
1  in,  p.  115.  «i,  P.  402. 


476         A  Student 's  History  of  Philosophy 

nomenal  world,  which  can  serve  as  a  satisfaction  to  cur 
desires,  but  rather  with  the  eternal  types  which  are  repre- 
sented in  the  objectification  of  the  World  Will  —  the  stages 
which  it  has  assumed.  Art  is  concerned  with  ideas.  It 
repeats  or  reproduces  the  eternal  ideas  grasped  through 
pure  contemplation,  the  essential  and  abiding  in  all  the 
phenomena  of  the  world.  In  relation  to  these,  the  details 
of  the  natural  world,  and  the  multitudinous  events  of  his- 
tory, are  just  as  foreign  and  unessential  and  indifferent  as 
the  figures  which  they  assume  are  to  the  clouds,  the  form 
of  its  eddies  and  foam  flakes  to  the  brook,  or  its  trees  and 
flowers  to  the  ice.  Astonishment  at  the  complete  same- 
ness of  all  its  million  phenomena,  and  the  infallibility  of 
their  occurrence,  is  really  like  that  of  a  child  or  a  savage, 
who  looks  for  the  first  time  through  a  glass  with  many 
facets  at  a  flower,  and  marvels  at  the  complete  simi- 
larity of  the  innumerable  flowers  which  he  sees.  The 
one  source  of  art  is  the  knowledge  of  the  ideas;  its 
one  aim  the  communication  of  this  knowledge.  "  While 
science,  following  the  unresting  and  inconstant  stream 
of  the  fourfold  forms  of  reason  and  consequent,  with 
each  end  attained  sees  farther,  and  can  never  reach  a 
final  goal,  any  more  than  by  running  we  can  reach  the 
place  where  the  clouds  touch  the  horizon,  art,  on  the  con- 
trary, is  everywhere  at  its  goal.  For  it  plucks  the  object 
of  its  contemplation  out  of  the  stream  of  the  world's  course, 
and  has  it  isolated  before  it.  And  this  particular  thing 
which,  in  that  stream,  was  a  small  perishing  part,  becomes 
to  art  the  representative  of  the  whole,  an  equivalent  of  the 
endless  multitude  in  space  and  time.  It  therefore  pauses 
at  this  particular  thing ;  the  course  of  time  stops ;  the 
relations  vanish  for  it;  only  the  essential,  the  idea,  is  its 
object."  1 

In  the  pure  contemplation  of  these  Platonic  ideas,  the 
soul  finds  thus  a  momentary  release  from  striving,  and  by 
its  disinterestedness  it  denies  for  a  time  the  remorseless 

1 1,  p.  239. 


Philosophy  since  Hegel  477 

will  to  live.  Knowledge  breaks  free  from  the  service  of 
the  will,  and  loses  itself  in  the  object;  man  forgets  his 
individuality,  his  will,  and  only  continues  to  exist  as  the 
pure  subject,  the  clear  mirror  of  the  object  —  the  pure, 
will-less,  painless,  timeless  subject  of  knowledge.  The  fac- 
ulty of  continuing  in  this  state  of  pure  perception,  and  of 
enlisting  in  this  service  the  knowledge  which  originally 
existed  only  for  the  service  of  the  will,  is  what  we  call 
genius.  Genius  is  the  power  of  entirely  renouncing  one's 
own  personality  for  a  time,  so  as  to  remain  pure  knowing 
subject,  clear  vision  of  the  world.  The  common  mortal, 
the  manufacture  of  nature  which  she  produces  by  the 
thousand  every  day,  is  not  capable  thus  of  observation 
that  in  every  sense  is  wholly  disinterested ;  he  can  turn 
his  attention  to  things  only  so  far  as  they  have  some  rela- 
tion to  his  will. 

But  such  moments  as  art  can  give,  are  too  fleeting  for 
complete  deliverance  —  that  can  come  about  only  by  the 
complete  suppression  of  the  will  to  live.  This  cannot  be 
attained  by  suicide.  The  destruction  of  its  phenomenal 
manifestation,  the  body,  leaves  quite  unchanged  that  un- 
derlying will  which  is  the  true  cause  of  our  misery.  The 
real  source  of  the  conditions  we  are  trying  to  escape 
remains  untouched  by  death.  "  If  a  man  fears  death  as  his 
annihilation,  it  is  just  as  if  he  were  to  think  that  the  sun  cries 
out  at  evening :  Woe  is  me !  for  I  go  down  into  eternal 
night." 1  The  suicide,  therefore,  goes  to  work  the  wrong 
way.  Instead  of  denying  the  will,  he  gives  up  living  just 
because  he  cannot  give  up  willing.  True  deliverance 
comes,  not  by  rejecting  life,  but  the  desire  for  life ;  not  by 
shunning  sorrows,  but  by  shunning  joys.  To  the  attain- 
ment of  this  happy  consummation,  morality  forms  a  step. 
Morality  is  in  essence  the  crushing  out  of  the  egoistic  self- 
assertion,  which  is  ready  to  annihilate  the  world  in  order  to 
maintain  its  own  self,  that  drop  in  the  ocean,  a  little  longer ; 
it  does  this  through  the  recognition  of  the  fact  that,  after 

1 1,  p.  361- 


478         A  Students  History  of  Philosophy 

all,  it  is  only  phenomenally  that  I  differ  from  my  neighbor. 
In  reality,  each  man  must  say  to  himself  with  reference 
to  other  things :  This  art  Thou.  Down  beneath  the  ap- 
pearance of  difference  which  the  space  and  time  forms 
give,  it  is  the  same  unitary  will  which  constitutes  your 
life  and  mine ;  and  so  our  interests  are  not  different,  but 
identical.  The  true  root  of  all  morality,  therefore,  is  sym- 
pathy; for  sympathy  is  nothing  but  the  obscure  percep- 
tion of  this  identity  between  myself  and  my  neighbor. 

But  while  morality  is  a  partial  abandonment  of  the 
striving  will,  in  so  far  as  it  sinks  the  law  of  mere  self- 
preservation  in  a  sense  of  human  brotherhood,  it  is  only 
the  starting-point.  He  who  through  morality,  however, 
by  renouncing  every  accidental  advantage,  desires  for  him- 
self no  other  lot  than  that  of  humanity  in  general,  cannot 
desire  even  this  long.  And  thus  only  do  we  reach  the 
final  goal.  True  salvation  only  comes  when  all  striving 
ceases,  when  we  mortify  the  deeds  of  the  body  by  volun- 
tarily crushing  out  all  desire  and  all  activity.  "  Every 
gratification  of  our  wishes  won  from  the  world  is  like  the 
alms  which  the  beggar  receives  from  life  to-day,  that  he 
may  hunger  again  to-morrow ;  resignation,  on  the  con- 
trary, is  like  an  inherited  estate,  it  frees  the  owner  forever 
from  all  care."  1 

The  highest  ideal  of  life,  then,  is  that  ascetic  starvation 
of  all  the  impulses,  which  results  in  the  attainment  of 
Nirvana,  the  heaven  of  the  extinction  of  consciousness. 
"  Then  nothing  can  trouble  a  man  more,  nothing  can  move 
him,  for  he  has  cut  all  the  thousand  cords  of  will  which 
hold  us  bound  to  the  world,  and,  as  desire,  fear,  envy, 
anger,  drag  us  hither  and  thither  in  constant  pain.  He 
now  looks  back  smiling  and  at  rest  on  the  delusions  of  this 
world,  which  once  were  able  to  move  and  agonize  his  spirit 
also,  but  which  now  stand  before  him  as  utterly  indifferent 
to  him  as  the  chessmen  when  the  game  is  ended,  or  as  in 
the  morning  the  cast-off  masquerading  dress,  which  worried 

1 1,  p.  504. 


Philosophy  since  Hegel  479 

and  disquieted  us  in  the  night  in  carnival.  Life  and  its 
forms  now  pass  before  him  as  a  fleeting  illusion,  as  a  light 
morning  dream  before  half  waking  eyes,  the  real  world 
already  shining  through  it  so  that  it  can  no  longer  deceive ; 
and  like  this  morning  dream,  they  finally  vanish  altogether, 
without  any  violent  transition."  Is  it  said  that  this  is  an 
ideal  of  nothingness  ?  It  is  not  denied.  "  Rather  do  we 
freely  acknowledge  that  what  remains  after  the  entire  abo- 
lition of  the  will,  is,  for  all  those  who  are  still  full  of  will, 
certainly  nothing  ;  but  conversely,  to  those  in  whom  the 
will  has  turned  and  has  denied  itself,  this  our  world  which 
is  so  real,  with  all  its  suns  and  milky  ways  —  is  nothing."  * 

LITERATURE 

Schopenhauer,  Chief  Works  :  Fourfold  Root  of  the  Principle  of 
Sufficient  Reason  (1813);  World  as  Will  and  as  Idea  (1819).  Trans- 
lations :  Haldane  and  Kemp  (World  as  Will  and  as  Idea)  ;  Hille- 
brand  (Fourfold  Root*)  ;  Bax  (Essays)  ;  Saunders  (Essays). 

Wallace,  Schopenhauer. 

Sully,  Pessimism. 

Caldwell,  Schopenhauer's  System  in  its  Philosophical  Significance. 

Wenley,  Aspects  of  Pessimism. 

§  40.    Comte  and  Positivism 

I.  In  the  Positivism  of  the  French  philosopher  Comte, 
the  claims  of  science  receive  a  full  recognition.  Auguste 
Comte,  born  in  1798,  was  influenced  in  early  life  by  the 
Socialist  St.  Simon,  and  it  was  from  him  that  he  got  the 
germ,  at  least,  of  the  idea  which  was  to  make  him  more 
than  a  philosopher  of  science,  and  lead  him  to  subordinate 
his  scientific  interests  to  the  conception  of  man  and  society. 
His  Cours  de  Philosophic  Positive,  published  in  1839- 
1842,  gave  him  a  position  among  the  most  important  think- 
ers of  his  day.  A  school  of  Positivism  soon  appeared  in 
France,  and  in  England  men  like  J.  S.  Mill  and  Herbert 
1 1,  pp.  504,  532. 


480        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

Spencer,  though  never  disciples  in  the  strict  sense,  were 
influenced  by  him.     His  death  occurred  in  1857. 

Positivism  means  the  definite  abandonment  of  all  search 
for  ultimate  causes,  and  the  inner  essence  of  things,  and 
the  turning  of  human  attention  rather  toward  the  laws  of 
phenomena  as  the  only  facts  alike  knowable  and  useful. 
Knowledge  is  of  value  because  it  helps  us  modify  condi- 
tions in  the  physical  and  the  social  world  ;  to  do  this  we 
need  to  know  how  things  act,  and  that  is  all  we  need  to 
know.  This  limitation  of  all  knowledge  to  phenomena 
Comte  hardly  attempts  to  prove  in  detail.  He  assumes  it 
to  be  self-evident  to  all  minds  that  are  abreast  of  their  age ; 
it  is  the  one  great  lesson  which  the  history  of  human 
thought  has  to  teach.  This  is  the  outcome  of  Comte's 
famous  "  Law  of  the  Three  Stages."  Man  starts  in  by 
explaining  the  phenomena  of  nature  theologically.  He 
attributes  the  activities  of  things  to  an  arbitrary  will,  such 
as  he  finds  in  himself.  In  its  earliest  and  most  thorough- 
going form  this  is  fetichism,  which  obviously  leaves  but 
little  room  for  the  recognition  of  positive  law.  Later  on, 
the  conception  of  a  separate  will  in  each  material  thing 
becomes  generalized,  and  we  have  the  polytheistic  stage. 
Polytheism  is  more  general  and  abstract  in  character  than 
fetichism ;  the  gods  act  through  things,  without  things 
themselves  being  alive;  and  by  reason  of  this  greater 
abstractness,  the  secondary  details  of  phenomena  are  set 
free  for  scientific  observation. 

The  final  stage  of  theological  thought  is  monotheism. 
Here  we  have  everything  brought  back  to  a  single  abstract 
will,  and  consequently  a  still  wider  extension  of  scientific 
observation  is  made  possible  in  connection  with  the  details 
of  nature.  Just  because  it  is  so  abstract,  however,  mono- 
theism cannot  yield  any  permanent  satisfaction,  and  must 
give  place  to  a  strictly  scientific  explanation.  But  it  can- 
not do  this  immediately  —  a  transition  stage  must  intervene  ; 
and  this  is  the  stage  of  metaphysics.  Metaphysics  drops, 
indeed,  the  idea  of  a  personal  will,  but  it  substitutes  there- 


Philosophy  since  Hegel  481 

for,  not  positive  law,  but  metaphysical  essences  and  pow- 
ers, mere  abstract  repetitions  of  the  gods  of  the  previous 
stage,  the  dry  bones  of  the  living  creatures  of  poetry. 
These  furnish  no  real  explanation,  accordingly,  but  are  only 
the  phenomena  over  again,  with  an  abstract  name  substi- 
tuted for  the  concrete  facts.  To  the  metaphysical  stage 
succeeds  the  final  goal  of  human  thought,  the  positive  stage, 
which  occupies  itself  solely  with  the  facts  of  experience, 
and  the  laws  which  they  reveal,  without  making  the 
impossible  attempt  to  penetrate  behind  phenomena  to  the 
unknown  real. 

The  first  part  of  Comte's  task,  then,  is  to  sum  up  in 
organized  form  the  laws  of  the  various  sciences.  This 
organization  he  tries  to  carry  out  by  a  definite  hierarchy 
of  the  sciences,  beginning  with  the  most  abstract  —  mathe- 
matics —  and  passing  up,  in  the  order  of  greater  and  greater 
complexity,  through  astronomy,  physics,  chemistry,  to  biol- 
ogy, each  science  basing  itself  on,  and  making  use  of,  the 
results  of  the  science  beneath  it.  But  now  there  is  one 
great  class  of  facts  which  has  not  been  touched  —  the  facts 
of  social  life ;  and  here  we  come  to  the  centre  of  Comte's 
whole  position,  and  that  which  gives  him  his  greatest  his- 
torical importance.  He  will  furnish  a  crown  and  climax 
to  his  whole  system,  by  founding  a  positive  science  of  so- 
ciety, a  sociology.  Not  only  will  he  thus  bring  within  the 
scope  of  the  positive  scientific  method  the  whole  round  of 
experienced  facts,  but  he  will  also  give  to  what  has  preceded 
its  unity  and  rational  justification.  For  as  each  group  of 
sciences  enters  into  the  next  higher  group,  so  the  whole 
science  of  material  nature  gets  its  reason  and  end  in  the 
service  of  humanity.  Here  we  have  not,  indeed,  an  objec- 
tive and  absolute  principle  of  unity  for  our  philosophy, 
a  unity  based  on  the  inner  essence  of  reality,  which  we 
have  seen  to  be  unknowable ;  but  at  least  we  have  a  sub- 
jective and  practical  basis.  That  basis  is  humanity,  whose 
life  we  can  modify  because  we  know  its  laws ;  and  it  is 
for  the  service  of  humanity  that  science  exists.  Humanity 


482         A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

is  our  highest  concept.  Whatever  the  foundation  of  things 
may  be  in  itself,  however  indifferent  or  hostile  to  human 
progress,  at  least  things  may  up  to  a  certain  point  be  com- 
pelled to  enter  the  service  of  man.  And  only  in  so  far  as 
knowledge  can  turn  their  laws  into  an  instrument  of  ser- 
vice, need  we  regard  them. 

2.  The  object  of  Comte  in  his  Sociology  is  essentially 
the  same  as  that  of  Hegel  —  to  discover  definite  laws  in 
the  development  of  social  experience.  With  Comte  there 
is  the  added  purpose,  however,  of  showing  how  these  laws 
point  to  a  more  adequate  social  state  in  the  future.  He  is 
trying,  that  is,  to  get  a  satisfactory  social  ideal,  not  as  an 
arbitrary  construction,  but  as  a  carrying-out  of  those  ten- 
dencies and  forces  which  are  already  at  work  in  society. 
The  general  form  of  the  result  which  he  reaches  has  already 
been  given  in  the  principle  of  the  three  stages ;  it  is  in  the 
elaboration  of  this,  in  its  connection  with  the  social  as 
well  as  the  purely  theoretic  life,  that  the  substance  of  his 
social  theory  consists,  and  the  basis  is  found  for  his  pro- 
posed reconstruction  of  society. 

Very  briefly,  this  connection  is  as  follows  :  The  theologi- 
cal stage  represents  the  socialization  of  the  human  race. 
For  any  real  social  union,  a  certain  community  of  belief  is 
required,  and  this  common  doctrine  is  furnished  by  the- 
ology, least  adequately  in  its  earlier  and  fetichistic  stage, 
more  completely  in  its  latest,  or  monotheistic. 

In  this  grade  of  social  attainment,  however,  there  are 
certain  defects  involved.  In  the  first  place,  the  union  of 
the  temporal  with  the  spiritual  power  which  exists  in  the 
earlier  stages  of  society,  is  detrimental  to  the  best  interests 
of  the  latter.  The  great  function  of  the  priesthood  is  to 
supply  those  moral  and  social  sanctions  which  keep  society 
together;  but  this  necessitates  certain  intellectual  gifts 
which  are  not  identical  with  the  gifts  called  for  by  the 
immediate  work  of  social  administration.  Unless  the  two 
offices,  therefore,  are  kept  distinct,  the  more  insistent  and 
practical  needs  will  prevail,  and  this  will  involve  the  su- 


Philosophy  since  Hegel  483 

premacy  of  a  lower  order  of  intelligence,  that  will  not  be 
adequate  to  the  spiritual  functions.  It  was  the  great  merit 
of  the  Middle  Ages,  the  one  period  of  history  to  which 
Comte  looks  back  continually  with  admiration,  that  they 
brought  about  the  separation  of  these  two  functions,  giv- 
ing to  the  priesthood  a  supremacy  of  guidance  and  advice, 
while  secular  affairs,  matters  of  action,  were  handed  over 
to  a  secular  power.  In  this  way  the  conflict  between  men 
of  action  and  men  of  thought  was  reconciled.  Moral 
and  intellectual  eminence  could  now  win  position,  as  it 
could  not  in  the  practical  field.  At  the  same  time,  morals 
were  made  independent  of  politics.  They  were  released 
from  service  to  the  particular  state,  which  had  kept  them 
dominated  by  the  military  spirit  necessary  for  self-pres- 
ervation, and  were  given  a  general  and  universal  charac- 
ter. This,  in  turn,  reacted  upon  and  moralized  politics. 
But  now,  in  the  second  place,  although  this  separation 
of  the  spiritual  and  secular  powers  in  the  Middle  Ages 
represents  on  the  formal  side  the  ideal,  monotheism  was 
unable  to  supply  the  adequate  material  by  means  of  which 
the  spiritual  power  could  construct  those  common  beliefs 
on  which  social  unity  must  rest.  This  can  only  be  accom- 
plished on  the  basis  of  facts  so  compelling,  as  to  insure 
their  general  acceptance ;  and  so  on  the  basis  of  Positiv- 
ism. But  before  such  a  result  can  come  about,  there  must 
be  a  preliminary  work  of  clearing  the  ground.  This  is 
the  work  of  the  metaphysical  stage,  or  of  the  period  of  the 
Enlightenment.  The  function  of  the  Enlightenment  is 
thus  simply  negative  and  revolutionary.  By  reference  to 
this  negative  task,  all  its  characteristic  dogmas  have  their 
explanation  ;  they  represent  simply  a  denial  of  different 
parts  of  the  old  social  order  based  on  theology.  Such  are 
the  doctrines  of  the  right  of  private  judgment,  and  of  the 
equality  of  all  men,  and  the  theory  of  government  which 
reduces  it  to  mere  police  functions.  Thus,  because  the 
Enlightenment  is  in  antagonism  with  the  ancient  order,  its 
tendency  is  to  represent  all  government  as  being  the  enemy 


484        A  Students  History  of  Philosophy 

of  society.  Liberty  of  conscience,  again,  is  the  mere 
abstract  expression  of  that  temporary  state  in  which  the 
human  mind  was  left  by  the  decay  of  the  theological  phi- 
losophy, and  which  must  last  until  the  social  philosophy 
appears,  to  supply  a  new  positive  content  of  belief. 

The  result  is  that  a  division  arises  between  the  heart 
and  the  intellect.  This  must  continue  until  the  intellect 
shows  itself  capable  of  producing  a  new  system  that  can 
more  securely  sustain  the  social  order,  and  more  com- 
pletely satisfy  the  affections  and  spiritual  aspirations  of 
man,  than  the  fictions  of  theology  had  done.  This  recon- 
ciliation is  found  in  Positivism.  In  opposition  to  the  indi- 
vidualistic dogmas  of  the  Enlightenment,  Positivism  goes 
back  for  its  ideal  to  the  Middle  Ages.  Like  the  Middle 
Ages,  it  insists  upon  the  necessity  of  an  independent  spir- 
itual power,  which  shall  formulate  the  doctrines  on  which 
society  is  to  be  founded,  and  morality  based.  But  these 
doctrines  are  no  longer  theological ;  they  are  the  outcome 
of  science.  This  regeneration  of  social  doctrine  must  raise 
up  from  the  midst  of  anarchy  a  new  spiritual  authority, 
which,  after  having  disciplined  the  human  intellect,  and 
reconstructed  morals,  will  peaceably  become  the  basis  of  a 
final  system  of  human  society. 

But  now  with  knowledge  placed  thus  upon  a  positive 
basis,  "  freedom  of  conscience  "  can  no  longer  have  any 
justification.  This  is  merely  provisional  to  the  final  deci- 
sion, and  if  insisted  upon  as  absolute,  becomes  an  obstacle 
to  reorganization.  When  social  and  religious  questions  are 
given  scientific  treatment,  liberty  of  conscience  is  as  much 
out  of  the  question  as  it  is,  e.g.,  in  astronomy  or  physics. 
There  are  few  people  who  consider  themselves  fitted  to 
sit  in  judgment  on  an  astronomical  problem ;  can  it  be 
supposed  that  the  most  important  and  the  most  delicate 
conceptions,  and  those  which  by  their  complexity  are 
accessible  to  only  a  small  number  of  highly  prepared 
understandings,  are  to  be  abandoned  to  the  arbitrary  and 
variable  decisions  of  the  least  competent  minds  ?  A  disso- 


Philosophy  since  Hegel  485 

lution  of  the  social  state  would  necessarily  ensue  if  this 
were  allowed.  Social  order  must  ever  be  incompatible 
with  a  perpetual  discussion  of  the  foundations  of  society. 
The  convergence  of  minds  requires  a  renunciation  by  the 
greater  number  of  their  rights  of  individual  inquiry,  on 
subjects  above  their  qualifications,  and  requiring  more 
than  any  others  a  real  and  permanent  agreement. 

The  spiritual  power  in  the  new  society  is  thus  a  priestly 
guild,  made  up  of  the  highest  order  of  intellects,  working 
in  the  intellectual  realm,  not  for  science  on  its  own  account 
—  specialism  in  science  is  forbidden  —  but  for  the  inter- 
ests of  humanity.  Such  a  priesthood  is  preserved  from 
all  temptation  to  prostitute  its  position,  by  being  entirely 
removed  from  civil  power,  and  confined  simply  to  the 
moral  influence  of  advice  and  theoretical  formulation. 
What,  now,  is  to  be  the  constitution  on  the  civil  side  ? 
Here  another  principle  comes  into  play,  which  likewise  has 
been  brought  out  by  the  survey  of  social  development.  This 
development  has  been  a  progress  from  a  military  to  an 
industrial  basis.  The  military  organization  necessarily 
comes  first.  The  industrial  spirit  supposes  the  existence 
of  a  considerable  social  attainment,  such  as  could  not  have 
taken  place  till  isolated  families  had  been  connected  by 
the  pursuits  of  war.  So,  too,  war  has  laid  the  foundation 
of  habits  of  regularity  and  discipline ;  while  slavery,  the 
consequence  of  war,  gives  rise  directly  to  habits  of  indus- 
try. But  with  its  work  accomplished,  military  civilization 
must  give  way  to  an  industrial  civilization. 

At  the  present,  many  of  the  features  of  the  old  regime 
still  hold  over ;  but  the  new  society  will  be  placed  con- 
sciously and  completely  on  an  industrial  basis.  Here, 
again,  the  "  equality "  of  the  Revolution  finds  no  place. 
Since  society  is  an  organism,  different  members  have  dif- 
ferent parts  to  play,  and  thus  necessarily  have  different 
values  and  rewards.  And  as  in  the  sciences,  the  princi- 
ple of  subordination  can  only  be  that  of  the  degree  of  gen- 
erality. The  more  particular  the  industrial  function,  the 


486         A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

greater  the  subordination  ;  the  more  general  it  is,  and  the 
more  it  involves  a  coordination  of  activities,  the  higher 
the  rank  which  the  wielder  assumes.  Accordingly,  we 
have  a  capitalistic  regime,  headed  by  the  "  captains  of  in- 
dustry," and  culminating  in  the  banker,  who,  as  exercising 
the  most  general  function,  is  the  leader  of  society  on  the 
side  of  its  active  work.  In  this  general  organization,  all 
workers  will  find  their  place,  and  so  all  distinction  between 
public  and  private  functions  will  be  dropped. 

The  dangers  of  this  capitalism  are  to  be  avoided  by  the 
growing  moralization  of  society,  by  the  moral  influence 
which  the  disinterested  priesthood  will  exert,  and  by  the 
power  on  the  part  of  labor  to  refuse  cooperation  —  peace- 
ful strikes.  The  positive  foundation  given  to  the  laws 
of  conduct  will  exercise  a  compulsion  unknown  before. 
Moral  rules  will  have  acquired  a  new  energy  and  tenacity 
when  they  rest  on  a  clear  understanding  of  the  influence 
which  the  actions  and  the  tendencies  of  each  individual 
must  exercise  on  human  life.  The  mere  fact  that  each 
man  is  consciously  working  for  the  general  welfare  of  so- 
ciety will  arouse  a  new  enthusiasm.  Other  men  would 
feel,  if  their  labor  were  but  systematized,  what  the  private 
soldier  feels  in  the  discharge  of  his  humblest  duty  —  the 
dignity  of  public  service,  and  the  honor  of  a  share  in 
the  action  of  the  general  economy.  The  priests  and  the 
workers  will  be  natural  allies,  and  their  union  will  be 
enough  to  counteract  the  selfish  tendencies  of  the  civil 
power,  and  keep  it  true  to  the  service  of  humanity. 

3.  So  much  for  the  earlier  form  of  Comte's  philosophy. 
In  later  years  he  lost  much  of  the  sanity  of  his  earlier 
views,  and  attempted  to  convert  his  philosophy  into  a 
religion  of  humanity.  Unable  to  satisfy  the  longings  of 
the  heart  by  truth,  Comte  was  led  to  substitute  for  this 
poetry.  The  Grand  Eire — Humanity  —  is  worshiped  as 
the  mediator  between  the  outer  world  and  man,  and  as 
the  real  author  of  the  benefits  for  which  thanks  were 
formerly  given  to  God  —  a  worship  to  which  was  added 


Philosophy  since  Hegel  487 

that  of  the  earth  as  the  Great  Fetich,  and  of  space  as  the 
Great  Medium.  An  elaborate  and  fanciful  ritual  was 
introduced  to  give  impressiveness  to  this  worship.  Nor 
was  this  a  matter  of  choice  merely.  The  paternalism 
which  was  implicit  in  Comte's  earlier  thought  comes  more 
and  more  to  the  front,  in  a  rigid  subordination  of  the  un- 
fortunate member  of  the  new  society  to  every  whim  and 
vagary  of  the  High  Priest  of  Humanity.  But  as  on  this 
side  Comte's  thought  has  had  but  little  influence,  we  may 
pass  it  by  with  this  brief  notice. 

LITERATURE 

Comte,  Chief  Work :  Positive  Philosophy  (1830-42).     Translation: 
Harriet  Martineau  {Positive  Philosophy), 
Mill,  Comte  and  Positivism. 

Caird,  The  Social  Philosophy  and  Religion  of  Comte. 
Watson,  Outline  of  Philosophy. 
Fiske,  Darwinism  and  other  Essays. 
Mackintosh.  From  Comte  to  Benjamin  Kidd. 
Martineau,  Essays. 
Martineau,  Types  of  Ethical  Theory. 
Morley,  Augnste  Comte  (in  Critical  Miscellanies). 
Levy-Bruhl,  Philosophy  of  Auguste  Comte. 

§    41.    Utilitarianism  and  Evolution.     Spencer 

I.  Utilitarianism.  —  Outside  his  own  country,  it  was  in 
England  that  Comte's  writings  met  with  most  sympathy 
and  favor.  The  prevailing  English  type  of  thought  has 
from  the  start  been  empirical  and  practical,  rather  than 
speculative.  It  cares  more  for  facts  and  results  than  for 
the  speculative  grounds  on  which  these  are  to  be  justified. 
Accordingly,  the  more  widely  influential  tendencies  in 
English  philosophy  have  exhibited  just  that  interest  in 
social  reform,  and  that  sense  for  scientific  fact  as  opposed 
to  metaphysical  theory,  which  are  found  in  Comte.  On 
the  practical  side,  this  is  most  clearly  represented  in  the 
Utilitarianism  of  the  school  of  Bentham  and  the  Mills. 


488         A  Student" s  History  of  Philosophy 

Based  on  an  individualistic  and  hedonistic  philosophy,  the 
spirit  of  Utilitarianism  has  yet  always  been  thoroughly 
social  in  its  nature.  Its  hedonism  has  always  been  at  bot- 
tom, not  private  pleasure,  but  public  use ;  it  has  stood  for 
the  need  of  establishing  the  alleged  Tightness  or  wrong- 
ness  of  any  act,  by  its  relation  to  human  welfare.  Its  em- 
piricism has  set  it  in  opposition  to  all  a  priori  and  innate 
truths.  And  the  source  of  this  opposition  has  been  at  bot- 
tom the  practical  one  of  hostility  to  the  forces  of  conserva- 
tism and  tradition,  which  stand  in  the  way  of  progress, 
and  justify  existing  wrongs.  If  all  our  beliefs  rest  ulti- 
mately, not  on  intuitions  of  absolute  truth,  which  there- 
fore cannot  be  changed,  but  on  the  mere  association  of 
ideas  gathered  from  experience,  there  is  nothing  to  hin- 
der these  associations  from  being  broken  up  again,  when 
this  is  required  by  the  demands  of  human  progress; 
and  we  can  always  bring  them  anew  to  the  test  of  experi- 
ence. Accordingly,  Utilitarianism  has  gone  hand  in  hand 
with  public  reforms  and  political  liberty.  The  movement 
has  its  most  attractive  representative  in  John  Stuart  Mill, 
His  greatest  philosophical  achievement  is  perhaps  his 
Logic,  which  is  the  starting-point  for  the  modern  treat- 
ment of  inductive  reasoning. 

2.  Psycho-Physical  Parallelism.  Fechner.  —  The  two 
great  scientific  doctrines  of  the  nineteenth  century  are 
also  closely  connected  with  England.  For  the  honor 
of  the  first  formulation  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Conserva- 
tion of  Energy,  by  which  a  new  unity  has  been  given  to 
the  mechanical  interpretation  of  the  universe,  there  are 
rival  claimants,  one  of  them  an  Englishman  ;  and  at  least 
the  working  out  of  the  doctrine  has  been  in  considerable 
measure  due  to  English  scientists.  This  Law  of  the  Con- 
servation of  Energy  has  had  one  philosophical  result  so 
important  as  to  deserve  a  special  mention.  It  has  given 
a  new  emphasis  to  the  feeling,  on  the  part  of  scientists, 
that  it  is  impossible  to  call  in  consciousness  to  serve  in  any 
sense  as  an  explanation  of  bodily  acts.  If  the  Law  of 


Philosophy  since  Hegel  489 

Conservation  is  not  to  be  violated,  then  the  physical 
universe  forms  a  closed  system  in  which  there  is  no  place 
for  a  new  influence,  as  such  a  consciousness  would  be,  com- 
ing in  from  the  outside  to  modify  the  result.  Accordingly, 
there  has  been  a  wide-spread  disposition  to  accept  the 
doctrine  of  the  automatism  of  the  physical  body,  and  to 
regard  the  psychical  processes  as  simply  running  along- 
side the  physical  movements,  without  exerting  any  influence 
upon  them.  This  is  called  the  doctrine  of  psycho-physical 
parallelism  —  a  doctrine  which  has  been  further  strength- 
ened by  the  tendency  of  psychology,  as  an  empirical 
science,  to  find  a  physiological  correlate  to  every  aspect  of 
the  conscious  life. 

This  parallelism  must,  however,  have  some  further  ex- 
planation in  the  nature  of  things ;  and  so  there  has  been 
a  tendency  to  return  to  Spinoza's  conception  of  an  ultimate 
identity  of  mind  and  body.  The  physical  and  the  psychi- 
cal are  only  two  ways  of  looking  at  a  single  ultimate  reality, 
which  is  either  unlike  both  of  them,  and  so  unknown,  or 
else  is  identical  with  the  conscious  series.  This  last  hypoth- 
esis was  popularized  by  the  German  philosopher  Fechner. 
The  reality  of  what  we  call  our  body  is  the  conscious  life 
which  we  immediately  experience ;  it  is  only  the  outside 
observer  looking  at  this,  who  sees  it  as  a  material  fact. 
But  then  we  must  interpret  every  physical  object  in  the 
same  way,  and  find  the  true  being,  not  only  of  animals, 
but  of  plants  and  inanimate  things,  in  a  conscious  life  like 
our  own,  only  less  complex.  All  these  minor  conscious- 
nesses have  their  unity  in  the  one  great  life  of  God,  as  the 
things  which  are  their  phenomenal  appearances  are  brought 
together  in  the  all-embracing  unity  of  scientific  law.  One 
of  the  most  persuasive  recent  advocates  of  this  doctrine  is 
Friedrich  Paulsen. 

3.  The  Theory  of  Evolution. —  But  the  doctrine  whose 
philosophical  results  have  been  most  far-reaching,  and 
which,  indeed,  has  tinged  all  the  thought  of  the  last  half 
century,  has  undeniably  sprung  from  English  soil.  It  is 


490        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

not  the  purpose  here  to  describe  in  detail  the  theory  of 
evolution ;  in  its  general  outlines  it  is  now  familiar  to 
every  one.  The  old  conception  of  God,  which  places 
Him  outside  the  world,  which  He  influences  only  arbi- 
trarily and  miraculously,  and  which,  therefore,  He  has  a 
direct  relation  to  only  in  so  far  as  we  get  beyond  the 
sphere  of  natural  law,  had  made  a  stand  on  the  existence 
of  organisms.  It  had  claimed  that  here,  at  least,  an  out- 
side interference  has  evidently  taken  place.  For  the  dif- 
ferent organs  —  the  eye,  e.g.,  or  the  hand  —  are  evidently 
designed  to  perform  their  various  functions  ;  and  design 
implies  an  outside  designer,  an  intelligent  cause.  Each 
separate  species,  then,  must  be  regarded  as  created  out- 
right by  an  act  of  God. 

Darwin's  merit  lay  in  the  fact  that  he  brought  the  world 
of  organic  life,  as  previous  science  had  brought  the  inor- 
ganic world,  under  the  reign  of  natural  law,  by  pointing  out 
a  vera  causa,  which  at  least  would  help  account  for  the  origin 
of  species  without  reference  to  such  a  miraculous  agency. 
It  is  a  fact  that  no  organism  is  an  exact  reproduction  of  a 
preceding  organism ;  there  are  constant  minute  variations 
in  one  direction  or  another  from  the  parent  forms.  It  is 
also  a  fact  that  some  of  these  variations  are  likely  to  be 
more  helpful  to  the  animal  than  others.  Some  will  be 
in  a  direction  to  prove  of  advantage  to  it  in  dealing  with 
its  environment,  while  others,  again,  will  be  useless,  or  posi- 
tively detrimental.  Now  if  the  world  were  an  easy  place  to 
live  in,  if  there  were  food  in  plenty  for  all,  and  no  rivalry, 
this  would  not  be  a  matter  of  much  consequence;  but 
such  is  not  the  case.  Vastly  greater  numbers  of  all 
kinds  of  animal  life  come  into  the  world  than  can  be 
supported  in  it.  There  is  as  a  result  a  continual  struggle 
for  existence,  and  in  the  natural  course  of  events,  it 
is  the  weaker  individuals  —  the  ones,  that  is,  less  adapted 
to  their  environment  —  that  go  to  the  wall. 

But  here  we  have  all  the  data  for  an  explanation  of 
the  existing  adaptation  of  organisms,  without  the  need  of 


Philosophy  since  Hegel  491 

having  recourse  to  an  external  designer.  Grant  that 
variations  are  constantly  taking  place,  some  of  which  are 
fitted  to  give  the  possessor  a  slight  advantage  in  the 
struggle  for  existence ;  then  this  more  favored  individual 
is  likely  to  survive  at  the  expense  of  his  brothers  and 
sisters.  And  if,  as  our  knowledge  of  heredity  would 
suggest,  these  inborn  variations  are  transmitted  to  the  ani- 
mal's descendants,  the  basis  is  laid  for  a  progressive  devel- 
opment which,  given  time  enough,  might  result  in  all 
the  highly  specialized  forms  of  the  present  day.  It  is  no 
longer  necessary  to  say,  e.g.,  that  animals  in  the  north 
have  fur  in  order  to  protect  them  from  the  cold ;  they 
are  protected  from  the  cold,  because  they  have  fur.  Thus 
the  whole  aspect  of  the  organic  world  has  changed.  In- 
stead of  having  a  number  of  distinct  and  permanent 
species,  which,  if  they  are  looked  at  simply  in  themselves, 
seem  too  complex  and  teleological  to  be  accounted  for 
as  a  purely  natural  product,  we  have  a  continuous  stream 
of  process,  in  which  nothing  is  fixed,  but  each  step  is 
connected  with  the  rest  by  a  series  of  slight  changes  ;  and 
in  which,  therefore,  each  organ  is  to  be  explained,  not  sim- 
ply by  reference  to  its  present  stage,  but  by  reference  to 
the  whole  development  which  here  reaches  a  temporary 
climax.  And  to  this  universal  law  of  development,  man  is 
of  course  no  exception. 

The  theory  of  evolution  was  left  by  Darwin  still  incom- 
plete. The  importance  of  natural  selection  as  an  agency 
is  now,  indeed,  very  generally  admitted,  but  also  it  is 
widely  believed  that  it  does  not  furnish  a  complete  ac- 
count. Indeed,  it  is  plain  that  selection  does  not  cause 
advance  in  the  first  place.  Selection  can  only  take  place 
on  the  basis  of  an  advance  already  made ;  and  so  the 
question  is  brought  back  to  the  cause  and  nature  of  the 
original  variations  which  are  afterward  selected  out,  as  well 
as  of  the  factor  of  heredity,  which  Darwin  also  took  for 
granted.  The  philosophy  of  evolution  is,  therefore,  not 
necessarily  identical  with  Darwinism  ;  and,  moreover,  the 


492         A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

inconsistency  of  evolution  with  an  ultimate  teleology  —  a 
conception  of  immanent  purpose,  as  opposed  to  the  external 
design  of  the  older  argument  —  is  not  by  any  means  shown. 
The  fact  of  a  gradual  development  of  organic  forms  may, 
however,  be  regarded  as  practically  established,  and  its 
recognition  has  changed  the  whole  aspect  of  human  thought. 
Not  only  in  the  biological  sciences,  but  also  in  the  realm 
of  human  experience,  the  principle  has  been  applied,  and 
is  being  applied,  with  results  that  are  putting  a  new  face  on 
all  our  knowledge.  Here  the  evolutionism  of  Darwin  comes 
in  contact  with  that  of  Hegel ;  and  in  this  contact,  a  recon- 
struction of  the  conception  is  likely  to  be  brought  about. 
The  attempt  to  make  the  law  of  natural  selection  as  promi- 
nent in  the  social  world  as  it  has  been  supposed  to  be  in 
the  physical,  has  hitherto  not  been  successful.  We  may 
expect  to  find  the  future  devoting  itself  to  the  task  of 
coming  to  a  better  understanding  of  the  way  in  which  the 
laws  of  these  two  diverse  realms  are  related. 

4.  Herbert  Spencer.  — The  most  comprehensive  attempt, 
on  the  basis  of  the  new  science,  to  bring  within  a  single  for- 
mula the  complexity  of  the  world,  is  that  of  Herbert  Spen- 
cer. Spencer  was  born  in  1820.  His  academic  training  was 
slight ;  his  education  did  not  proceed  along  the  conventional 
lines,  but  followed  the  direction  of  his  natural  preferences, 
which  were  scientific  and  sociological,  rather  than  literary 
or  historical.  In  his  earlier  years  he  engaged  actively  in 
the  profession  of  engineering.  Intellectual  interests  became, 
however,  more  and  more  predominant  with  him,  and  finally, 
as  the  underlying  principle  which  had  been  present  in  his 
thinking  from  the  start  gradually  became  clear  to  his  mind, 
he  determined  deliberately  to  devote  his  life  to  expounding 
it.  The  outline  of  a  Synthetic  Philosophy  was  drawn  up, 
to  whose  working  out  Spencer  was  to  devote  over  forty 
years  of  his  life.  The  work  was  carried  on  under  many 
discouragements.  At  times  he  was  at  the  point  of  being 
compelled  to  abandon  it  through  lack  of  money;  and 
throughout  he  was  handicapped  by  a  chronic  semi-invalid- 


Philosophy  since  Hegel  493 

ism,  brought  on  originally  by  overwork.  But  the  work 
was  finally  completed,  substantially  on  the  lines  laid  down 
at  the  beginning.  Spencer  died  in  1903. 

There  are  two  characteristics  of  Spencer's  intellectual 
temperament,  on  which  the  special  character  of  his  philos- 
ophy is  grounded.  One  is  the  tendency,  alike  natural  to 
him,  and  developed  by  his  father's  early  training,  to  look 
for  causes  —  natural  causes  —  of  everything  that  he  came 
across.  The  second  characteristic  was  his  remarkable 
powers  of  generalization.  He  had  an  unusual  gift  for  feel- 
ing the  points  of  similarity  between  things  widely  different 
on  the  surface,  for  penetrating  to  the  common  features  of 
apparently  disconnected  facts. 

With  these  powers,  Spencer  was  fortunate  in  becoming 
possessed  early  in  life  by  a  single  fruitful  idea  —  the  idea  of 
development.  Of  course  the  idea  as  such  was  far  from 
being  a  new  one.  Even  in  biology,  the  starting-point  and 
centre  of  modern  evolutionary  doctrine,  it  had  been  formu- 
lated in  a  well-known  hypothesis  —  that  of  Lamarck.  But 
by  scientists  as  a  whole  it  was  not  yet  taken  very  seriously. 
Spencer  came  in  contact  with  this  biological  theory  in  a 
book  intended  to  controvert  it;  but  his  sympathy  remained 
rather  with  the  view  he  found  criticised.  Not  that  Spencer 
had  any  special  competency  to  solve  the  biological  prob- 
lem. It  was  simply  a  natural  leaning  due  to  his  tempera- 
mental bias.  Organisms  must  have  developed,  he  argued, 
because  the  only  other  alternative  is  a  supernatural  crea- 
tion, which  is  the  denial  of  scientific  intelligibility.  Before 
therefore  Darwin's  theory  had  convinced  scientists  that,  as 
a  scientific  explanation,  evolution  furnishes  the  most  sat- 
isfactory account  of  the  origin  of  species,  Spencer  had 
accepted  this  idea  in  its  broader  form  as,  in  an  almost 
self-evident  way,  true  of  things  generally,  and  had  used  it 
to  throw  light  upon  a  variety  of  problems. 

Meanwhile  there  was  gradually  growing  up  in  his  mind 
the  recognition  that  if  development  rules  the  world,  there 
must  be  certain  laws  which  hold  concerning  it  that  are  of 


494        -A  Students  History  of  Philosophy 

universal  application.  This  evolution  of  the  Law  of  Evo- 
lution was  a  gradual  and  somewhat  laborious  affair,  which 
finally  took  shape  in  the  famous  Spencerian  formula :  Evo- 
lution is  a  continuous  change  from  indefinite,  incoherent 
homogeneity,  to  definite,  coherent  heterogeneity  of  struc- 
ture and  function,  through  successive  differentiations  and 
integrations. 

The  meaning  of  this  is  not  so  formidable  as  might  appear 
on  the  surface.  Eliminating  secondary  matters,  the  main 
point  is  simply  this :  that,  on  the  one  hand,  development 
involves  a  growing  specialization  and  division  of  labor, 
while,  on  the  other,  these  specialized  organs  and  functions 
are  bound  more  and  more  intimately  together  to  form  an 
organic  unity  or  system.  This  is  the  sum  and  substance 
of  the  evolutionary  philosophy.  Spencer  tries  to  show, 
also,  not  only  that  this  is  true  as  an  empirical  generalization, 
but  that  it  is  necessarily  true.  After  reaching  it  induc- 
tively, he  turns  around,  following  his  favorite  method,  and 
attempts  to  prove  that  as  a  deduction  from  a  certain  —  to 
him  —  self-evident  truth  —  the  law  of  the  persistence  of 
force  —  this  is  the  course  that  events  had  to  take.  With- 
out stopping  to  consider  the  cogency  of  this  deduction, 
we  may  simply  ask  wherein  the  value  of  the  formula  con- 
sists. 

And  it  seems  evident  that  it  cannot  lay  pretence  to  being 
a  complete  philosophy.  To  suppose  that  the  universe  has 
been  accounted  for,  and  its  problems  settled,  when  you 
have  said  that  things  are  all  the  time  becoming  more  com- 
plex and  more  unified,  is  to  have  a  very  limited  notion  of 
the  philosopher's  task.  It  is  a  large  and  a  very  useful 
generalization  ;  but  a  mere  generalization  never  explains 
anything.  It  is  not  even  a  true  cause  of  certain  particular 
phenomena,  as  Darwin's  law  is.  To  this  we  may  return 
presently.  Meanwhile,  if  we  do  not  try  to  claim  too  much  for 
it,  of  its  real  and  positive  significance  there  can  be  no  ques- 
tion. This  consists,  in  the  first  place,  in  a  matter  of  the 
right  placing  of  emphasis.  It  brings  to  the  front,  and  in- 


Philosophy  since  Hegel  495 

sists  upon,  an  immensely  important  idea,  that  had  been 
neglected.  While  development  does  not  settle  the  prob- 
lems of  philosophy,  —  on  the  contrary,  it  creates  new  ones, 
—  it  does  largely  change  their  face ;  and  no  question  can 
be  settled  finally  without  reference  to  it.  Spencer  was 
very  largely  influential  in  making  the  idea  a  power  in 
modern  thought,  and  thereby  giving  a  new  impulse  to 
every  sphere  of  intellectual  activity.  He  was  fortunate  in 
becoming  possessed  of  a  fruitful  conception  just  at  the 
moment  when  forces  were  preparing  for  its  favorable  re- 
ception ;  and  by  conceiving  the  new  principle  in  a  univer- 
sal way,  he  came,  even  more  than  Darwin,  to  be  regarded 
as  its  high  priest. 

But  the  impression  which  he  was  able  to  make  on  his 
generation  would  have  been  impossible,  had  it  not  been 
for  the  remarkable  fertility  with  which  he  was  able  to 
apply  it  to  the  facts  of  experience  in  detail.  Probably  no 
man  in  the  last  generation  started  a  greater  number  of 
fruitful  scientific  theories,  in  the  most  varied  fields,  than 
did  Spencer.  Many,  indeed  most,  of  these  theories  are 
now  recognized  as  at  best  only  partial.  But  they  had  the 
merit  of  starting  inquiry  along  lines  which  have  led  to 
permanent  results. 

Spencer's  work  was  along  four  main  lines  —  Biology, 
Psychology,  Sociology,  and  Ethics.  Omitting  the  first,  we 
may  turn  briefly  to  his  Psychology.  The  thing  of  main 
importance  is,  again,  the  new  point  of  view  for  regarding 
the  psychological  life.  This  is  primarily  a  growth;  and 
so  it  can  be  best  understood  genetically,  in  the  light  of  its 
history.  Taken  thus,  the  apparently  so  diverse  aspects  of 
the  developed  consciousness  can  be  traced  back  to  simple 
undifferentiated  forms  of  functioning.  This  genetic  point 
of  view,  and  the  corresponding  emphasis  upon  the  relation- 
ship of  mind  to  the  developing  biological  organism,  has 
had  far-reaching  effects  upon  modern  psychology.  Of 
Spencer's  psychological  doctrines  in  particular,  perhaps 
the  most  widely  known  relates  to  the  much  discussed 


496        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

philosophical  problem  of  innate  ideas.  Hitherto  the 
Empiricists,  in  denying  the  existence  of  metaphysically 
valid  innate  ideas,  had  tended  to  ignore  the  fact  that 
actually  human  beings  do  not  enter  the  world  without  any 
bias  whatever,  a  mere  sheet  of  blank  paper  on  which  ex- 
perience writes  its  lessons.  We  have  ways  of  reacting, 
even  in  the  mental  life,  which  are  too  general  and  neces- 
sary to  be  easily  explained  through  the  accidents  and  un- 
certainties of  each  man's  personal  experience.  The  theory 
of  evolution  enabled  Spencer,  as  he  thought,  to  effect  a 
compromise  between  the  warring  schools.  He  agreed 
with  the  Intuitionalists  that  each  individual  man  does  find 
himself  possessed  of  ways  of  apprehending  the  world 
which  go  back  of  any  experience  in  his  own  lifetime.  But,  on 
the  other  hand,  this  does  not  mean  that  such  ideas  are  to 
be  accepted  as  a  divine  and  indubitable  revelation  inde- 
pendent of  all  experience.  To  experience  they  go  back, 
and  in  terms  of  experience  they  can  be  explained,  as  the 
Empiricists  maintained ;  but  it  is  the  experience  of  our 
ancestors,  not  ourselves.  Innate  in  us,  acquired  in  the 
race, — this  Spencer  thought  would  combine  the  relative 
truth  of  both  sides. 

The  biological  conception  Spencer  applies  likewise  to 
Sociology.  Social  institutions  also  are  not  made ;  they 
grow.  The  organic  conception  of  society  is  now  a  com- 
monplace, and  Spencer  did  much  to  bring  about  its  adop- 
tion. Here  also  one  aspect  only  of  his  social  doctrine  can 
be  briefly  mentioned.  There  are  two  opposing  tendencies 
in  modern  social  movements.  One  is  the  tendency  to  look 
to  the  State  for  interference  in  behalf  of  desirable  social 
ends.  The  other  is  inclined  to  restrict  such  activity  on 
the  part  of  the  State,  assigning  to  it  nothing  more  than 
police  functions,  while  all  further  initiation  is  to  be  left 
to  private  citizens.  Of  this  Individualism,  Spencer  is  the 
chief  modern  representative.  Primarily  it  is  with  him  a 
matter  of  temperament.  His  natural  independence  and 
assertiveness  of  character  make  the  thought  of  State  inter- 


Philosophy  since  Hegel  497 

ference  intensely  disagreeable,  as  an  interference  with  his 
rights.  The  most  fundamental  moral  right  of  a  man  is 
the  right  to  do  as  he  pleases,  unrestricted  by  anything 
save  the  equal  rights  of  others  to  the  same  freedom.  If 
man  were  a  perfectly  moral  being,  he  would  voluntarily 
restrict  himself  to  such  limits.  But  a  part  of  his  inheri- 
tance from  a  primitive  state,  where  egoistic  self-assertion 
was  necessary,  is  that  tendency  to  disregard  others'  rights 
which  constitutes  an  imperfection  in  his  adjustment  to 
present  conditions;  and  so  long  as  the  existing  mal- 
adjustment continues,  there  is  need  of  an  organ  to  bring 
about  the  mutual  forbearance  that  society  demands.  This 
organ  is  found  in  what  we  call  government.  But  here 
Spencer  is  able  to  get  into  connection  with  his  formula, 
and  lend  to  his  natural  individualistic  bias  the  weight  of  a 
concordance  with  his  philosophy.  In  two  ways  he  justifies 
his  individualism.  First,  and  chiefly,  according  to  the 
law  of  Evolution,  functions  become  more  and  more  spe- 
cialized in  definite  organs.  Now  government  is  such  a 
special  organ.  Its  one  distinct  and  fundamental  work  is 
to  prevent  mutual  aggression.  For  that  it  is  necessary ; 
other  social  needs  can  be  met  by  private  initiative  and 
association.  By  the  general  law  of  things,  it  ought  to 
confine  itself,  therefore,  to  its  special  work.  If  it  gets 
beyond  these  bounds,  and  tries  to  do  the  work  for  which 
there  is  other  machinery,  it  will  not  only  do  this  poorly, 
but  it  will  lose  so  much  energy  for  the  proper  perform- 
ance of  its  own  special  task. 

There  is  another  way  in  which  the  thing  appeals  to 
Spencer  —  a  way  which  brings  to  light  one  of  the  presup- 
positions which,  without  his  trying  adequately  to  prove  them, 
form  the  background  of  Spencer's  whole  system.  This  is 
the  assumption  that  things  work  out  in  the  evolving  uni- 
verse by  purely  natural  laws,  which  it  is  quite  impossible 
for  man  to  interfere  with  or  modify.  Natural  laws  repre- 
sent for  Spencer  not  merely  facts  to  be  recognized,  but  to 
some  extent,  also,  ideals  that  have  a  claim  upon  us.  As 

2K 


498        ^  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

one  of  his  friends  once  said,  "The  laws  of  nature  are  to 
him  what  revealed  religion  is  to  us."  To  attempt  to  inter- 
fere with  them  is  not  only  foolish  and  meddling,  it  is  almost 
impious  as  well.  By  reason  of  this  attitude,  which,  it  may 
be  noticed,  is  by  no  means  a  necessary  consequence  of  evo- 
lution, he  was  led  still  further  to  discount  the  value  of  hu- 
man efforts  for  remedying  social  conditions.  Things  will 
improve  only  when,  in  their  own  good  time,  the  impersonal 
laws  of  nature  work  themselves  out ;  our  interference  only 
helps  to  keep  alive  those  who  are  socially  unfit,  and  whose 
elimination  in  favor  of  a  higher  type  is  nature's  method 
of  advance.  Evils  can  only  rectify  themselves  by  a  self- 
adjusting  process,  which  we  cannot  hasten,  though  appar- 
ently we  may  hinder  it. 

In  the  Ethics,  the  idea  of  development  is  still  further 
applied,  this  time  to  the  facts  of  the  moral  experience. 
Here  may  be  mentioned  three  points  in  particular :  the  use, 
once  more,  of  the  distinction  between  the  individual  and  the 
race  experience,  to  settle  the  quarrel  over  the  so-called 
moral  sense,  or  moral  intuitions;  the  explanation  of  con- 
science, or  the  feeling  of  obligation,  as  taking  its  origin 
in  social  commands  and  restrictions ;  and  the  attempt  to 
arbitrate  between  egoism  and  altruism,  by  making  the 
moral  life  a  composite  of  the  two.  A  more  general  point 
is  the  application  of  evolution  in  the  criticism  of  Utilitari- 
anism. Spencer  agreed  with  the  Utilitarians  that  pleasure 
and  avoidance  of  pain  represent  in  a  way  the  end  of  life. 
But  he  held  Utilitarianism  faulty  for  its  inability  to  lay 
down  any  rules  for  the  attainment  of  this  end  save  those 
of  pure  empiricism  —  finding  out  by  trial.  To  be  a  science, 
ethics  must  be  able  to  deduce  its  results ;  and  for  this 
there  is  needed  a  more  objective  statement  of  the  end  than 
the  mere  feeling  of  pleasure.  Spencer  found  this  in  the 
evolutionary  conception  of  adjustment  to  environment. 
Such  an  adjustment  involves  natural  laws,  and  by  dis- 
covering such  laws  we  can  determine  beforehand  what 
course  of  conduct  will  secure  happiness,  since  this  is  to  be 


Philosophy  since  Hegel  499 

found  only  in  a  perfectly  adjusted  functioning.  Since 
such  a  perfection  of  adjustment  does  not  now  exist,  it  fol- 
lows that  the  principles  of  scientific  ethics  apply,  strictly 
and  without  modification,  not  to  our  present  conduct,  but 
to  a  future  society,  where  the  process  of  evolution  shall 
have  reached  an  equilibrium.  When  such  a  state  shall 
have  been  attained,  all  our  troubles  will  be  over,  the  idea 
of  duty  will  disappear  as  no  longer  needed,  and  we  shall 
all  do  the  right  by  instinctive  preference. 

In  conclusion,  we  may  turn  back  to  a  point  to  which 
reference  already  has  been  made.  Our  final  estimate  of 
Spencer' s  philosophy  as  a  reasoned  system  must  be  consid- 
erably affected  by  the  fact  that  its  main  outcome  is  an  em- 
pirical generalization,  which  ignores  most  of  the  fundamental 
problems  that  a  philosophy  needs  to  consider.  The  recogni- 
tion of  development  is  compatible,  that  is,  with  a  variety 
of  opposing  philosophies.  Spencer  has,  it  is  true,  an  an- 
swer to  give  to  these  further  problems,  or  to  many  of  them. 
But  his  great  deficiency  lies  in  the  fact  that  his  answer, 
for  the  most  part,  is  in  the  form  of  a  merely  temperamental 
attitude,  implied  or  assumed  as  a  background  for  his  think- 
ing, but  seldom  fairly  brought  to  the  light  and  scrutinized 
on  its  merits.  This  attitude  is  that  to  which  the  name  of 
Naturalism  has  in  recent  times  been  given.  Naturalism 
means  that  the  natural  laws  of  science  are  taken  as  the 
final  word  of  explanation;  that  man,  and  human  ideals,  are 
to  be  regarded  as  nothing  but  products  of  nature,  to  be  fully 
accounted  for  in  terms  which  involve  no  more  than  can  be 
detected  in  those  prior  processes  of  the  developing  world 
out  of  which  they  spring;  that  the  complex,  therefore,  can 
always  be  reduced,  without  remainder,  to  the  simple,  the 
higher  to  the  lower.  This  may  all  be  true ;  but  it  needs 
at  least  a  far  more  adequate  proof  than  it  ever  occurred  to 
Spencer  to  give.  For  him,  it  is  almost  wholly  a  matter  of 
assumption;  and  the  one  point  at  which  he  does  fairly  face 
ultimate  questions,  is  perhaps  the  weakest  in  his  whole 
system.  This  is  his  Agnosticism.  It  is  possible,  so  he 


500        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

thinks,  to  show  that  by  the  nature  of  our  minds  we  are 
necessarily  shut  out  from  a  knowledge  of  ultimate  reality. 
We  are  as  incompetent  to  think  it  as  a  deaf  man  to  under- 
stand sounds.  The  proof  of  our  incapacity  is  briefly  this : 
that  we  can  only  think  in  terms  of  relating  one  thing  to  an- 
other, of  comparison,  whereas  Absolute  reality,  by  definition, 
is  not  relative,  but  absolute,  and  is  in  consequence  beyond 
our  grasp.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  implied  in  all  our  relative 
knowledge  even,  since  there  would  be  no  sense  in  calling 
this  relative,  were  there  not  something  absolute  to  which  it  is 
contrasted.  Although,  then,  we  cannot  think  the  Absolute, 
we  have  a  sort  of  vague,  indefinite  meaning,  which  assures 
us  that  it  really  exists  in  some  unknown  form.  That  which 
comes  closest  to  a  description  of  this  unknown  reality, 
Spencer  finds  in  the  term  Force. 

The  Unknowable  supplies  what  for  Spencer  is  the  only 
possible  religion  for  the  modern  man  of  science.  Histori- 
cal religions  are,  of  course,  subject  to  a  naturalistic  explana- 
tion, and  are  discredited  by  their  origin.  But  hidden  in  all 
positive  religions,  there  is  an  irreducible  minimum  which 
science  does  not  touch.  This  is  the  feeling  of  awe  in  the 
presence  of  the  mysteries  of  the  universe.  If  anything, 
science  tends  to  emphasize'the  ultimate  mystery  of  existence. 
A  feeling  of  awe,  then,  in  the  face  of  the  unknowable  force 
from  which  all  things  spring,  is  the  final  form  which  reli- 
gion is  destined  to  take. 

LITERATURE 

Mill,  Works. 

Spencer,  Synthetic  Philosophy. 

Darwin,  Origin  of  Species,  Descent  of  Man. 

Huxley,  Works. 

Wallace,  Darwin. 

Romanes,  Darwin  and  after  Darwin. 

Schurman,  Ethical  Import  of  Darwinism. 

Fiske,  Darwinism  and  other  Essays,  Cosmic  Philosophy. 

Watson,  Outline  of  Philosophy. 

Ritchie,  Darwin  and  Hegel. 


Philosophy  since  Hegel  501 

Stephen,  The  English  Utilitarians. 
Bowne,  Philosophy  of  Herbert  Spencer. 
Collins,  Epitome  of  the  Synthetic  Philosophy. 
Hudson,  The  Philosophy  of  Herbert  Spencer. 
Royce,  Herbert  Spencer. 

§  42.    Conclusion 

Man's  attempt  progressively  to  come  to  a  knowledge  of 
the  nature  of  the  real  world  in  which  he  finds  himself,  and 
of  which  he  is  a  part,  is  at  the  same  time  a  revelation  of 
man  to  himself.  It  is  the  gradual  freeing  of  himself  from 
a  power  which  is  strange  and  foreign  to  him,  through  the 
recognition  that  his  own  life  is  bound  up  with  this  sup- 
posed external  reality,  and  that  only  by  accepting  it,  and 
putting  himself  in  line  with  the  forces  that  it  represents, 
can  he  attain  a  freedom  and  self-realization  that  is  sub- 
stantial and  real.  This  we  have  tried  to  show  is  the 
meaning  of  the  history  of  philosophy.  In  so  far  as  man 
is  truly  free,  he  knows  the  truth ;  and  in  so  far  as  he  has  a 
real  insight  into  truth,  he  is  free.  There  is  thus  no  con- 
tradiction between  that  practical  philosophy  which  brings 
a  man's  life  into  harmony  with  itself,  and  the  theoretical 
impulse,  which  is  gratified  by  the  widest  possible  knowl- 
edge ;  both  have  ultimately  the  same  end  in  view. 

In  closing,  it  may  be  well  to  point  out,  in  a  few  words, 
some  of  the  more  general  questions  which  our  own  time 
has  received  as  a  legacy  from  the  past.  And  the  central 
problem  of  all  is  still  the  problem  which  has  come  before 
us  all  along  as  the  conflict  between  science  and  religion, 
mechanism  and  teleology,  fact  and  ideal.  How,  in  other 
words,  are  we  to  reconcile  what  we  know  of  the  laws  of  the 
outer  world  —  laws  of  rigid  mechanical  necessity  —  with 
the  needs  of  Spirit,  the  demand  for  freedom,  the  existence 
of  ideals  ?  That  the  laws  of  nature  have  a  validity  in  their 
own  realm,  is  the  net  result  of  the  Age  of  Science  —  a 
result  which  it  is  now  time  to  take  as  established  and  im- 
pregnable. But  it  is  impossible,  on  the  other  hand,  to  adopt 


502        A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

this  as  a  final  creed,  in  the  sense  of  a  dogmatic  materialism. 
The  claims  of  Spirit  also  may  be  taken  as  established.  It 
no  longer  is  a  question  of  suppressing  either  side,  but  rather 
of  finding  some  way  in  which  both  may  have  their  claims 
satisfied. 

And,  speaking  briefly,  we  may  say  that  modern  philoso- 
phy divides  into  two  great  camps,  according  as  it  holds, 
or  denies,  that  the  way  of  reconciliation  is  something  we 
can  comprehend  by  rational  insight.  On  the  latter  side 
stand  the  Positivist,  the  Kantian,  the  scientific,  and  the 
theological  Agnostic.  For  all  these,  we  are  brought  back 
as  a  final  result,  so  long  as  we  depend  upon  the  reason, 
merely  to  phenomena,  and  so  to  the  scientific  view  of  the 
universe  as  the  last  word.  If  the  other  side  is  to  get  its 
rights,  we  must  have  recourse  to  some  other  path,  —  to  a 
blind  awe  before  the  inscrutable  mystery  of  existence  ;  or  to 
the  attempt  to  find  satisfaction  in  the  play  of  poetic  fancy  ; 
or  to  faith  in  a  supernatural  revelation  ;  or,  again,  to  the  giv- 
ing up  of  all  metaphysical  ambitions,  and  the  resolution  to 
content  ourselves  with  life,  especially  social  life,  and  what 
we  can  make  out  of  it.  On  the  former  side  stand,  with 
endless  shades  of  difference,  the  Spiritualist,  the  Theist, 
the  Idealist  of  the  Hegelian  or  of  the  Berkeleyan  type. 
And  since  the  whole  possibilitity  of  the  solution  of  the 
question  is  dependent  on  the  decision  as  to  what  knowledge 
is,  questions  of  Epistemology  assume  a  special  prominence 
in  recent  thought. 

But  now,  supposing  some  general  knowledge,  at  least, 
of  reality  to  be  possible  —  and  few  agnostics  are  so  con- 
sistent as  to  resist  the  temptation  to  characterize  reality  in 
some  more  or  less  vague  and  general  way  —  it  will  still 
remain  to  ask -what  the  nature  of  this  reality  is.  And  here 
two  questions  in  particular  may  be  mentioned,  which  enter 
largely  into  the  philosophical  discussions  of  the  present 
day.  The  first  problem  is  frequently  put  in  this  way :  Is 
the  essence  of  reality  intellect,  or  will  ?  Or,  as  this  might 
be  interpreted,  is  reality  a  fact  complete  once  for  all,  like  a 


Philosophy  since  Hegel  503 

thought  content,  or  is  it  an  active,  changing,  developing, 
creative  process  ?  What,  in  other  words,  do  we  mean  by 
that  watchword  of  modern  thought — evolution  ?  What  is 
the  relation  of  change  and  progress  to  the  ultimate  state- 
ment of  things  ?  are  they  essential  to  it,  or  only  an  unreal 
phenomenon  ?  It  is  the  same  question,  of  course,  which 
engaged  Parmenides  and  Heracleitus  at  the  very  beginning 
of  philosophy  ;  but  evolution  has  given  the  question  a  new 
content,  and  a  new  importance. 

Another  fundamental  question,  which  also  has  occupied 
recent  philosophy,  is  the  one  that  may  be  called  the  problem 
of  monism,  or  of  the  individual,  according  to  the  side  from 
which  it  is  taken  up.  What  is  the  relation  of  apparent  in- 
dividuals to  that  whole,  whose  unity  —  a  unity  of  one  sort 
or  another —  philosophy  is  bound  to  maintain  ?  If  we  put 
it  in  its  religious  form,  what  is  the  nature  of  that  which  we 
call  an  individual  man,  and  what  is  his  relation  to  God,  or 
the  All  ?  That  we  cannot  set  aside  the  individual  as  purely 
illusory  is,  again,  the  assured  verdict  of  philosophy ;  but 
what  sort  of  reality  can  we  give  him  ?  If  God  is  the  whole, 
does  not  that  leave  the  human  self  a  mere  name  ?  If  He 
is  not  the  whole,  does  not  the  universe  fall  apart  into  un- 
thinkable bits  of  existence,  which  no  power  on  earth  or  in 
heaven  can  bring  into  connection,  since  there  is  no  one 
power  which  includes  them  all  ?  Metaphysically,  it  is  the 
dispute  between  Monism,  the  sole  reality  of  a  single  being, 
or  Absolute,  and  Pluralism ;  on  the  practical  side,  essen- 
tially the  same  problem  comes  to  light  in  the  social  realm. 
What,  in  society,  is  the  individual?  How  is  he  related  to 
society  and  the  state  ? 

An  account  of  recent  philosophy  which  would  fall  within 
the  compass  of  the  present  volume,  could  hardly  be  much 
more  than  a  list  of  names  ;  and  such  a  treatment  would 
not  serve  the  purpose  which  has  here  been  proposed.  But 
for  the  sake  of  greater  completness,  a  brief  reference  may 
be  made  to  a  few  of  the  more  recent  writers  who  have 
made  some  special  impression,  particularly  in  English  and 


504        A  Students  History  of  Philosophy 

American  thought.  Probably  of  the  philosophers  of  other 
countries,  to  whom  reference  has  not  already  been  made,  the 
one  who  has  had  the  most  extensive  influence  on  English- 
speaking  philosophers  is  Hermann  Lotze.  Lotze  was  among 
the  first  to  reemphasize,  as  against  Idealism  of  the  Hegelian 
type,  the  rights  of  naturalistic  and  mechanical  explanation 
in  the  field  of  science.  This  he  subordinated,  however,  to 
a  metaphysical  Idealism,  though  the  outlines  of  this  are  not 
always  entirely  clear  cut.  Perhaps  his  most  significant 
doctrine  is  in  connection  with  causality.  The  conceiv- 
ability  of  causal  interaction,  which  is  involved  in  scientific 
explanation,  he  tried  to  show  would  be  excluded  were  the 
elements  really  separate,  as  mere  mechanism  seems  to 
leave  them.  The  possibility  that  one  thing  should  influence 
another  is  only  intelligible,  in  case  they  are  in  reality  parts 
of  a  single  whole,  states  of  a  unitary  being.  Thus  science 
itself  points  to  an  ultimate  monism,  which  Lotze  interprets 
after  the  analogy  of  selfhood.  Several  influential  Amer- 
ican thinkers  have  been  followers  of  Lotze. 

In  England,  there  have  in  the  past  century  been  three 
large  movements  contesting  the  ground.  In  the  earlier 
part  of  the  century,  the  main  controversy  was  between  the 
common-sense  philosophers,  or  Intuitionalists,  of  the  Scot- 
tish school,  and  the  empirical  and  naturalistic  tendencies 
represented  by  the  Utilitarians  and  the  Evolutionists. 
Here  may  be  mentioned,  in  addition,  the  names  of  W.  K. 
Clifford,  John  Tyndall,  Thomas  Huxley,  and  G.  H.  Lewes. 
On  the  whole,  it  may  be  said  that  in  this  controversy  the 
Empiricists  had  distinctly  the  best  of  it. 

In  the  latter  half  of  the  century,  however,  a  new  antag- 
onist to  Naturalism  arose,  in  the  introduction  of  German 
Idealism  into  England.  Coleridge  and  Carlyle  had  already 
made  familiar,  in  an  unsystematic  way,  something  of  the 
underlying  spirit  of  the  German  movement ;  but  in  the 
so-called  Neo-Kantian  or  Neo-Hegelian  tendency,  this  be- 
comes an  independent  philosophical  development  of  con- 
siderable importance.  Among  the  earlier  Hegelians  may 


Philosophy  since  Hegel  505 

be  mentioned,  in  particular,  J.  H.  Stirling,  Thomas  Hill 
Green,  John  and  Edward  Caird.  The  tendency  was  toward 
an  intellectualistic  Monism  or  Absolutism,  —  a  conception 
of  reality  as  an  absolute  system  of  Reason,  in  which  the 
side  of  thought,  or  knowledge,  was  at  least  predominantly 
emphasized. 

With  this  general  type  of  thought,  the  majority  of  the 
more  significant  names  in  recent  English  and  American 
philosophy  have  been  in  some  measure  connected.  In 
very  recent  years,  however,  there  has  appeared  a  strong 
inclination  to  modify  considerably  the  earlier  form  which 
the  movement  took.  On  all  sides,  this  has  shown  itself  in 
the  tendency  to  make  more  of  the  concrete  aspects  of  expe- 
rience, as  opposed  to  abstract  rational  relationships  —  a 
tendency  which  has  commonly  led  to  the  substitution  of 
the  word  "  experience  "  for  "  thought."  Among  those  who 
have  started  out  in  general  sympathy  with  the  Hegelian 
movement,  but  who  have  modified  its  teaching  to  such  an 
extent  that  they  can  hardly  now  be  classed  with  it,  it  will 
be  enough  to  mention  four  names.  Andrew  Seth  Pringle 
Pattison  has  subjected  Hegelianism  to  an  effective  criti- 
cism, and  especially  with  reference  to  its  unsatisfactory 
treatment  of  the  idea  of  personality.  F.  H.  Bradley,  by  a 
new  analysis  of  the  nature  of  knowledge,  has  been  led  to 
deny  the  main  tenet  of  the  school  —  the  adequacy  of  what 
we  know  as  reason  to  the  structure  of  reality.  While 
reality  is  still  regarded  as  a  unitary  experience,  it  is  held 
that  all  our  ways  of  thinking  this  are  infected  with  insolu- 
ble contradictions,  and  so  are  only  more  or  less  imperfect 
approximations  to  what  in  its  concrete  nature  we  are  incom- 
petent to  grasp.  Josiah  Royce,  an  American  philosopher, 
departs  less  widely  from  the  Hegelian  position.  But  by  a 
new  emphasis  upon  the  teleological  nature  of  the  world 
whole,  and  a  consequent  getting  away  from  pure  intellect- 
ualism,  he  represents  what  is  essentially  a  new  type  of 
theory.  In  particular,  he  has  tried  to  solve  more  ade- 
quately the  problem  of  the  nature  of  the  individual,  and  to 


506         A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy 

harmonize  its  reality,  and  especially  its  ethical  reality, 
with  a  fundamental  monism.  A  fourth  tendency,  repre- 
sented by  John  Dewey,  goes  still  further  in  insisting  upon 
the  essentially  practical  character  of  all  knowledge,  to  the 
extent  even  of  confining  knowledge  altogether  to  this  in- 
strumental value,  and  so  of  eliminating  the  concept  of  an 
Absolute,  and  reducing  reality  to  the  flow  of  experience  as 
such.  With  this  tendency,  to  which  the  name  of  Pragma- 
tism has  recently  been  given,  certain  aspects  of  the  newer 
psychology  coincide.  From  this  starting-point  William 
James  has  been  led  to  adopt  a  very  similar  position  to  that 
of  Dewey. 


INDEX 


The  asterisk  indicates  the  important  place  in  which  the  subject  is  treated. 


Abelard,  2ii*ff.,  220. 

Academy,  68,  100*,  101,  i6of.,  184. 

^nesidemus,  161. 

^Esthetics,  117,   181,  290,  437,  461  ff., 

475  ff. 
Agnosticism,    428 ff.,   437,    438,   465, 

469,480,4995.,  502. 
Ambrose,  193. 
Ammonius  Saccus,  174. 
Anaxagoras,  28  ff. 
Anaximander,  13. 
Anaximenes,  13. 
Animism,  4. 
Anselm,  209  f. 
Antisthenes,  63*6.,  146. 
Apollonius,  173. 
Apuleius,  173. 
Aquinas,  2i6ff. 
Arabian  philosophy,  213. 
Arcesilaus,  161. 

Aristippus,  6o*ff.,  87,  I23f.,  138. 
Aristophanes,  42  f.,  49. 
Aristotle,  33,  49,  67,  100,  101  *ff.,  119, 

139,  140,  141,  166,  203,  213,  2i$R., 

221,  225. 
Arnold,  444. 
Asceticism,  97,   157,  175^,  182,  189, 

191,  478f. 

Association  of  ideas,  488. 
Atomism,  291".,  31  ff,  37f.,   100,   123, 

I29ff.,  308, 
Augustine,  192  ff. 
Automatism,  2745.,  284,  489. 
Averroes,  213. 


Bacon,  Lord,  205,  220,   231*6.,  249, 
255- 


Bacon,  Roger,  221. 

Belief,  374. 

Bentham,  394,  487. 

Berkeley,  346  *  ff.,  366,  368f.,  371,  378, 

502. 

Bernard  of  Clairvaux,  2H. 
Boccaccio,  224. 
Body,  see  Mind  and  Body. 
Bradley,  505. 
Brahe,  Tycho,  226. 
Bruno,  227*8.,  232. 
Butler,  391,  393. 

Caird,  E.,  505. 

Caird,  J.,  505. 

Carlyle,  83,  444,  504. 

Carneades,  161. 

Causation,  165,  270,  339,  370  ff.,  385, 

416,  423,  426,  4338.,  441,  453.  5°4- 
Change,  148".,  22  f.,  26,  29,  88,  94,  105. 
Christianity,  157  ff.,  184  ff.,  199  f.,  251, 

464. 

Chubb,  391. 

Church,  194  ff.,  202  ff.,  223,  251. 
Church  Fathers,  122,  185*8. 
Cicero,  136,  l67*f. 
Clarke,  392. 
Clifford,  504. 
Coleridge,  504. 
Collins,  391. 
Comte,  467,  479  *ff. 
Conceptualism,  21 1  f. 
Condillac,  396. 
Consciousness,  n,  32,  244,  269,  309  f. 

See  Soul  and  Self. 
Contract,  246  ff,  324,  406  f.,  456. 
Copernicus,  226,  228,  232. 


5<>7 


508 


Index 


Criterion  of  truth,  165,  262  f.,  273. 
Crusades,  213  f. 
Cudworth,  392. 
Cumberland,  392,  393. 
Cynics,  60,  63*  ff.,  138. 
Cyrenaics,  60*  ff.,  123. 

D'Alembert,  395. 
Darwin,  467,  490*  f.,  494. 
Deduction,  107,  242,  243  f.,  249,  262. 
Deism,  254,  390  *f.,  396,  405,  464. 
Democritus,  31  *  ff.,  39,  123,  127,  133, 

134- 

Descartes,  193^,  232, 250,  254,  257  *  ff., 

280,  284,  306,  307,  308. 
Determinism,  see  Freedom. 
Development,  102  ff.,  108,  256,  449  ff., 

467,  493  ff.,  502. 
Dewey,  506. 
Diderot,  395. 
Diogenes,  65,  66,  120. 
Dualism,  257,  277  f. 
Duns  Scotus,  219  f. 

Eckhart,  225. 

Eclecticism,  122,  l67ff. 

Eleatic  School,  19,  20  ff. 

Emanation,  180  f.,  189. 

Emotions,  141,  296  ff. 

Empedocles,  24*  ff.,  30,  31. 

Empiricism,  238  ff.,  255,  319  ff.,  323  ff., 

365,  366  ff.,  416 ff.,  488. 
Encyclopedists,  390,  395  *  f.,  399. 
Energy,  307,  488  f. 
Enlightenment,  254,  280,  306,  386  *  ff., 

400  ff.,  409  f.,  435,  447  f.,  450,  458, 

464. 

Epictetus,  148,  171. 
Epicureanism,  66,  121,  122*  ff.,  138, 

'39.  155.  1S6>  l67»  22S- 
Epicurus,  I22*ff.,  145,  160. 
Epistemology,  18  f.,  28,  33,  86  ff.,  102  ff., 

249.  255,  293,  316  f.,  319  f.,  323  ff., 

348  ff.,  364  f.,  366  ff.,  413  ff.,  440  ff., 

446  ff.,  502. 
Erasmus,  225. 
Erigena,  205  *  f.,  208. 


Ethics,  1 8,  38,  46  f.,  60  ff.,  63  ff.,  69  ff.f 

IO9  ff.,  123  ff.,  138,   140  ff.,  212,   245, 

280  ff.,  331  f.,  345  f.,  391  ff.,  434  f., 
443  f.,  456  f.,  477  f.,  488,  498  f. 

Euclid,  1 66. 

Euclides,  60. 

Euhemerus,  6l. 

Euripides,  29,  41. 

Evil,  18,  130,  152  ff.,  174  f.,  179,  188, 
317  ff.,  471  ff. 

Evolution,  see  Development 

Fechner,  489. 
Fichte,  442  f. 
Freedom,  134,  155  f.,  189,  195,  297  ff., 

314  ff.,  398,  402,  419,  433  ff.,  443  f. 
French  Revolution,  252,  256, 398, 401, 

405,  409,  454  f. 

Galileo,  226. 

Gaunilo,  210. 

Geometry,  see  Mathematics. 

Geulincx,  277. 

Gilbert,  232. 

Gnosticism,  179,  185,  456. 

God,  existence  of,  210,  270  f.,  286  ff., 

342,  356  ff.,  362  ff.,  405,  418,  429  ff.. 

437  f.,  447  f.,  463  f. 
Goethe,  409. 
Gorgias,  24,  42. 
Green,  505. 

Hamilton,  385. 

Hedonism,  61  ff.,  123  ff.,  396,  488. 

Hegel,  256,  292,  442,  445  *  ff.,  468  f., 

492,  502. 
Hegesias,  63. 
Helvetius,  395,  396. 
Heracleitus,  I4*ff.,  28,  86,  88,  105, 

502. 

Herbart,  465. 
Herder,  256,  411  *. 
Herodotus,  39. 
Hippias,  42. 
History,    philosophy  of,     196,   410  f., 

446  ff.,  459  ff. 
Hobbes,  232,  242  *  ff .,  263,  324,  392, 

393.  4°6. 


Index 


509 


Holbach,  396  *  ff.,  409. 

Hugo  of  St.  Victor,  211. 

Hume,  165,   255,   339,   365  *ff.,  394, 

396,  400,  413  ff. 
Hutcheson,  393. 
Huxley,  504. 
Hylozoism,  n,  227,  272. 

Ideas,   abstract,   86  ff.,    103  ff.,  206  ff., 

211  f.,  249,  292,  350,  449  ff.,  481. 
Ideas,  innate,  90,  262  f.,  276  f.,  319  ff., 

327  ff.,  338  f.,  426,  488. 
Immortality,  77,  97,  130  ff.,  158,  183, 

419,  436. 
Individualism,  40,  44  ff.,  82  ff.,  253  f.» 

307,  388  ff.,   400  ff.,  454  ff.,  496  ff., 

502,  505. 

Individuality,  see  Self. 
Induction,  237  ff. 
Intuitionalism,  see  Innate  ideas. 

Jamblicus,  183. 
James,  506. 

Justice,  45  f.,  74  ff.,  454  ff. 
Justin  Martyr,  185. 

Kant,   256,   339,   385,    390,  412  *  ff., 

440  ff.,  449,  465,  469,  502. 
Kepler,  226. 
Knowledge,  see  Epistemology. 

Lamarck,  493. 

Lamettrie,  396. 

Law,  17,  19,  45,    92,    134,  249,    292, 

497  f. 

Law,  Roman,  198  f. 
Leibniz,  254,  305*  ff.,  322, 390, 409, 415. 
Lessing,  256,  409  *  f. 
Leucippus,  31  f. 
Lewes,  504. 
Locke,  255,  319  f.,  322  *ff.,  353,  366, 

39°.  394.  395»  4°4,  4°6,  426. 
Logic,  24, 107  ff.,  451,  452  ff. 
Logos,  139,  169,  179. 
Lotze,  504. 

Lucretius,  123,  127,  128. 
Luther,  225. 
Lyceum,  102. 


Malebranche,  277. 
Manichaeans,  175,  179,  193. 
Marcus  Aurelius,  146,  171. 
Materialism,  32,  139,  244,  249  f.,  272, 

348  ff.,  396  ff. 
Mathematics,  9,  35,  243  f.,  259,  262  ff., 

279.  289,  305,  418,  420,  424  f. 
Matter,i04,  271  ff.,  307  f.,  348 ff.,  377  ff. 
Megarians,  60,  68. 
Melanchthon,  225. 
Melissus,  23. 

Metrodorus,  124,  126,  127. 
Milesian  School,  II,  12 f. 
Mill,  479,  487  f. 
Mind  and  Body,  274  ff.,  284  ff.,  308, 

313  f.,  488  f. 
Modes,  293,  295,  337. 
Monads,  308  ff. 

Monism,  505.     See  Pantheism. 
Montaigne,  226,  255,  387. 
Montanists,  188. 
Montesquieu,  395. 
Morality,  primitive,  5,  39. 
Motion,  22  ff.,    26,   27,   30,   32,    105, 

243  f.,  273. 
Mysticism,  175  ff.,  187,  211,  225,  302, 

445- 

Naturalism,  499,  504. 
Neo-Hegelianism,  504. 
Neo-Platonism,    122,     173,    174  *  ff., 

185,  i87ff.,  206,  225. 
Neo-Pythagoreanism,  173,  185. 
Nominalism,  206  *  ff.,  220  f.,  223,  249. 
Novalis,  280. 

Occam,  see  William  of  Occam. 
Occasionalism,  277  *  f.,  284,  313. 
Ontological  argument,  210,  430. 
Origen,  1 86. 

Paley,  394. 

Pantheism,  139,   I56f.,   1756".,  189  ff., 

208,  230,  280 ff.,  4iof.,  464. 
Paracelsus,  25,  230  f. 
Parallelism,  284  ff.,  307  f.,  489. 
Parmenides,  14,  22  *f.,  26,  27,  30,  32, 

502. 


Index 


Pascal,  255,  387. 

Paulsen,  489. 

Peripatetics,  118,  167. 

Personality,  see  Self. 

Pessimism,  63,  471  ff. 

Petrarch,  224. 

Phaedo,  60. 

Phenomenalism,  see  Agnosticism. 

Philo,  i68*f.,  173,  179. 

Philosophy,  nature  of,  2f.,  6,  8f. 

Plato,  12, 1 6,  27,  33,  46,  47,  49,  56,  59, 
67* ff.,  io2ff.,  107,  1 16,  126,  i4off., 
1 68,  173,  i75ff.,  203,  206  f.,  224, 
420,  476. 

Pleasure,  60 ff.,  69 ff.,  in,  I23ff.,  135. 

Plotinus,  I74ff. 

Plutarch,  173,  179. 

Pope,  232,  390. 

Positivism,  467,  478  ff.,  502. 

Pragmatism,  506. 

Pringle  Pattison,  505. 

Proclus,  184. 

Prodicus,  42,  44. 

Protagoras,  29,  42,  45,  86 f. 

Psychology,    76 ff.,    109,    140 f.,    244, 

294ff.,  332ff-i  366ff.,  404.  454.  495- 
Ptolemy,  166. 
Punishment,  456  f. 
Pyrrho,  160,  161. 
Pythagoras,  33*ff.,  173. 
Pythagoreans,  33*ff.,  68,  173,  225. 

Qualities,  primary  and  secondary,  272  f., 

335  f-.  343.  352  f. 
Rationalism,  210  ff,  253  ff.,  257  ff.,  280, 

3'9f-.  399.  401  ff.,  410,  4isff.,  438. 
Realism,  206  ff. 
Reason,  30  f,  109  f.,  140  f.,  2l7ff.,  364  f., 

381,  447  ff.     See  Thought. 
Reformation,  223,  225. 
Reid,  385. 
Relativity, doctrine 6f,  I7f.,  i6iff  ,295, 

42 iff.,  500. 
Religion  and  science,  21  f.,  39,  I27ff., 

133,  '56f-»  396  ff. 

Religion,  philosophy  of,  61, 410,  463  f., 
500. 


Renaissance,  206,  213,  214,  223*  ff., 

233,  386  f. 

Revelation,  187^,  236  f.,  248,  345. 
Richard  of  St.  Victor,  21 1. 
Roscellinus,  206  f. 
Rousseau,  125,  126,  255  f.,  399  *ff. 
Royce,  505. 

Scepticism,    24,    37ff.,    87f.,     121  f., 

looff.,  i66f.,  225,  255  f.,  264ff.,  362, 

381  ff.,  386  f.,  420. 
Schelling,  442,  444 ff. 
Scholasticism,  203  *  ff.,  231,  233,  238  ff., 

271. 

Schopenhauer,  466,  467,  468  *  ff. 
Science,   9,    13,   16,  25,  32,  36,  37  f., 

io8f.,    127!?.,     165,    220  f.,    2378., 

243  f.,  273  f.,  285,  398,  479  ff.,  488  ff., 
501. 

Scottish  School,  385,  509. 

Self,  4f.,  48,  56,  190  ff.,  194,  199,  253, 

257,  266  ff.,  342,  349,  368 ff.,  406  f., 

415  f.,  425  f.,  443  ff.     See  Soul. 
Seneca,  120,  126,  142,  147,  157,  158, 

171. 
Sensationalism,   87,   244,  365,    366  ff., 

396,  413  ff. 
Sense  perception,  i8f.,  33,  161  ff.,  244, 

310,  333  ff.,  4i3ff.,422ff. 
Sextus  Empiricus,  161,  165. 
Shaftesbury,  393. 
Smith,  Adam,  394. 
Social    philosophy,    78,   82  ff.,    H5f., 

244  ff.,  324,  399,  402  ff.,  457  ff-.  4°6  f-» 
482  ff.,  496. 

Socrates,  10,  15,  31,  43,  46,  49  *  ff.,  60, 
61,  63,  64,  67  f.,  69,  98,  119. 

Sophists,  38,  41  *  ff.,  55,  93,  107,  252. 

Soul,  4,  32,  36,  77  f.,  94  ff.,  109  f.,  132, 
139,  308  ff.,  356  f.,  429.  See  Self. 

Space,  23,  31,  359  f.,  422,  424  f. 

Spencer,  467,  480,  492  *  ff. 

Spinoza,  22,  230,  232,  278*  ff.,  3068., 
410,  445,  489. 

State,  see  Social  Philosophy. 

Stewart,  385. 

Stirling,  505. 


Index 


Stoicism,  66,121,   124,   137  *  ff.,   161, 

165,  167,  lyoff.,  igof.,  igSf.,  225. 
Substance,  278,  283,  292,  306  ff.,  338, 

341  ff-,  353,  423,  425- 
Sufficient  reason,  law  of,  316  f. 
Syllogism,  io8f.,  164,  238. 
Synthetic  judgments,  414. 

Tauler,  225. 

Teleology,  30  f.,  32,  93  f.,  103  f.,  108, 

130  f.,  139, 152  ff.,  286  ff.,  307,  312  ff., 

316,  438,  49  if.,  501,  505. 
Tertullian,  185. 
Thales,  12  *  f.,  16. 
Theodorus,  61,  62. 
Thought,  i8f.,  33,  55  f.,  88  ff.,  104 ff., 

i64f.,   276  f.,   413  ff.,  44off.,    448, 

502  f.     See  Reason. 
Thucydides,  29,  39. 
Time,  422. 
Tindal,  391. 
Toland,  391. 
Transmigration,  35. 


Turgot,  395. 

Twofold  truth,  218,  236,  436  f. 

Tyndall,  504. 

Universals,  206  ff.,  249,  292. 
Utilitarianism,  394,  487  f.,  498  f.,  504. 

Virtue,    52,    60,   63  ff.,    69  ff.,    Illff., 

140  ff.,  394. 
Voltaire,  390,  395  *. 

Walter  of  St.  Victor,  211. 

Will,  194,  219,  436,  443,  469  ff.,  502. 

William  of  Champeaux,  211. 

William  of  Occam,  218  ff.,  223. 

Winckelmann,  409. 

Wolff,  390,  415. 

Wollaston,  393. 

Xenophanes,  20  ff. 

Zeno  of  Elea,  23  f. 

Zeno,  the  Stoic,  137*,  160. 


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—  The  Outlook. 

"  The  book  is  exceedingly  good  to  read.  The  ease  and 
directness  of  the  style  win  one  from  the  first  page.  .  .  .  The 
volume  shows  real  psychological  living,  and  it  will  help  the 
student  who  comprehends  it  to  find  and  to  use  psychological 
material  in  his  own  experience.  Nearly  every  new  topic  is 
introduced  by  a  concrete  example  which  will  start  associations 
and  make  the  topic  significant.  There  is  a  wealth  of  illustra- 
tions, chosen  as  a  rule  with  care  and  discretion.  The  subordi- 
nation of  bare  schemata  and  classifications  is,  in  the  writer's 
opinion,  exceedingly  wise." 

—  I.  M.  BENTLEY  in  the  American  Journal  of  Psychology. 

"  The  introduction  will  take  a  high  rank  among  serious  and 
scholarly  psychological  treatises.  At  the  same  time  it  is  one  of 
the  few  books  upon  Psychology  which  combine  interest  with 
scholarliness,  and  are  thereby  fitted  to  be  popular  in  the  best 

sense  of  the  term." 

—  S.  F.  M.  in  the  Bibliotheca  Sacra. 


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